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THIS BOOK IS BOUND WITH 

Fl REG. U. S. PAT. OFF. _^ 
ABRIKOlD 

MAMUFACTURED By 

E. I. DU PONT DE NEMOURS POWDER COMPANY 

WILMINGTON. DELAWARE 









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Down the Eastern 



AND 



Up the Black Brandywine 



"God gives it snow, men give it sewage."— HUGO. 



WILMER W. MacELREE 



SECOND EDITION 



1912 



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COPYRIGHT 
BY THE AUTHOR 



r. 8. HICKMAN 

PRINTER 
WEST 0HE5TER, PA. 



Table of Contents. 



PAGE. 

At the Source, .... 7 

The Welsh Mountains, . . . .16 

Toward Cupola, . . . . 21 

Old Nantmel, . . . . -29 

St. Mark's, ..... 39 

Cupola Dam, . . . . -43 

In the Stream, .... 47 

Wyebrooke, . . . . -53 

Springton Manor, .... 58 

Glen Moore, . . . . .61 

Indian Run, ..... 65 

Lyndell and the Paxtang Road, . . -69 

From Springton Dam to Dorian's Mills, . . 78 

Up the Black Brandj-wine, . . -85 

Uwchlan, ..... 89 

Milford Mills, . . . . .92 

Flat Rock and the Marsh, • • • 95 

The Birthplace of T. Buchanan Read, . . 100 

From Dorian's Mills to Dowlin's Forge, . . 108 

Beaver Creek, . . . . .112 

Downingtown and the Old Lancaster Road, . 118 

The Lancaster Turnpike, . . . -125 

The Mutterings of the Bridge, . . . 129 

Along the Creek Road, . . . .132 

Cope's Dam, ..... 137 

Cope's Bridge, . . . . -144 

Deborah's Rock, .... 150 

Black Horse Run and the Island, . . . 155 

From the Island to the Forks, . . . 159 
Mather's Meadow, .... 165 

Osborne's Hill, .... 171 




u. 



AT THE SOURCE. 



" Who seeks for joy at Mother Nature's heart, 
From haste and hurry must enfranchised be, 
No breath from noisy street or toiling mart 
Her loveliness must stain, 
No memory of pain 
Encloud her great and sweet simplicity." 

Hayes— Adown the Brandywine. 



LONG the southern base of the Welsh 
Mountains in the northeastern part 
of Honeybrook Township, a short 
and narrow by-road branches off 
from the Morgantown highway, and 
runs westwardly toward Honeybrook 
Borough. 

Crossing this road almost at right 
angles, a limpid brooklet with rapid 
movement passes southward through 
a small and stony culvert ; while 
westward from this culvert a hundred yards or more, another 
brooklet crosses the same road and is bridged over with a few 
planks. Each claims to be the Brandywine, and each has its 
supporters. Sometimes the strife runs high ; now and then the 
eastern brooklet, bubbling with pride, refuses to confine itself to 

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its narrow circle of stone and floods the roadway; where- 
upon the western brooklet, not to be outdone, dashes and 
si:)lashes through the flags and briers and overhanging gi*ass 
and buries the bridge beneath its waters. 

foolish brooklets, who hath be- 
witched you? Near the head-spring 
of this romantic stream, far away from 
the contentions of courts, let me, I 
pray you, enjoy the calm peace of a 
summer afternoon. Amid these pas- 
toral scenes, close to the boundary lines 
of Chester County, let me listen to the 
music of reapers, let me realize in part the dream of Whittier's 
"Judge:" 

" No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs, 
Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues, 
But low of cattle and song of birds, 
And health and quiet and loving words." 

It was such hopes as these, such fancies, that quickened my 
steps as I struggled up the last long hill, and now that I have 
reached this spot designed by na- 
ture for peaceful meditations, 
let me rest and dreamily reflect 
upon the origin of life, its course 
and end. I fling myself upon the 
grass that lines the roadside, but 
find my sober thoughts most 
rudely interfered with by the 
high pretensions of these rival 
brooklets, each exclaiming as it 
goes splashing by me— 

"I am the Brandywine." 

Roused by their rustic interruptions, I inquire at last, 

[8 




"What have you to offer in support of your respective 
claims?" 

" My stream is the longer," murmurs one. 

" And mine the stronger," echoes the other. 

" But what shall be my fee?" I ask, from force of habit. 

"A drink of pure water from the fountain head," they 
burst forth in unison. Thirsty from a long and continuous walk, 
I accept the proffered terms and set out to settle their dis- 
pute. 

Starting from the culvert I climb a three-rail fence and land 
in a pasture field. After walking some three hundred yards in 
soft and springy soil, and clambering over another fence— this 



time a stony one be- 
decked with a sus- 
picious looking vine, 
I see— but a few 
rods in front of me, 
the source of the 
eastern brooklet. 
Here, two springs 
gush forth unceas- 




ingly. One of them 
is covered with a 
spring house, while 
the other forms a 
large pool just out- 
side. So invitingly 
cool did it look the 
first day I saw it, 
that my companion 



and I not only quenched our thirst, but drank a draught or two 
to its bubbling health. When I laid the tin cup down upon one 
of the broad flat stones that lined the spring, and turned to 
leave, I noticed an old man walking slowly down the hillside from 
a dwelling house close by. At once an easy way of solving the 
vexed question of " head-spring " presented itself, and as he drew 
near I opened the conversation by observing, 

" You are an old resident ? " 

"Well I reckon I am," said he, "my name is Hackett, ana 
I've lived round here for many a year." 

" Is this spring the source of the Brandywine," I asked, as 
I took another drink. 

9 1 



"Is it ? " he repeated, with a look of astonishment on his 
wrinkled face, " Well I reckon it is," said he, looking down on 
the bubbling fountain with fatherly affection, then shaking his 
head with emphasis, he pointed to a hollow log and added, " why 
cows wont drink nowhere else than from that trough, and by 
the bye, it never goes dry." 

















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As these statements seemed to be conclusive of the question, 
we bade the old man adieu and returned to the road. Crossing 
an adjoining field where some men and women were harvesting 
hay, we halted for a little rest, and waiving all preliminary ques- 
tions, proceeded at once to explain our possession of cameras and 
other accoutrements, by saying, " At the source of the Brandy-^ 
wine taking pictures." 

" Did you go to the left of yonder barn ? " asked the oldest 
of the harvesters. 

"No," I answered, "what's there?" 

" The source of the Brandywine," said he, laconically, " if 
you were not there, you were not at the source." 

Shades of Sir Walter Raleigh ! how hard it is to ascertain 
facts. 



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Reader, did you ever try to follow the channel of a brooklet? 
Not a quiet, well ordered, methodical brooklet, that flows unhin- 
dered through cultivated meadows and well cleared woods, where 
you can sit down beneath the sheltering branches of beech trees, 
and watch the waters play with the pebbles at their roots, but 
an untamed, untamable brooklet, that comes through tangled 
thickets interlaced with wildbriers. You seek an entrance but 
are driven back, each jealous wildbrier resenting your intrusion. 
A glimpse of smiling water lures you on, however, and you 
strive again ; this time the briers clutch your coat and hold you 
fast. You struggle— you sweat— you swab your face, until an 
impish brier seizes your handkerchief and tosses it from side to 
side above your head, and as you vainly try to grasp it, claws 
your hand and flings its long and prickly arms about your neck 
as if it fain would strangle you. Exasperated and reckless, un- 
conscious of smarts, you dash forward toward an open place and 
find yourself knee deep in swamps. You step on branches, they 
break with their rottenness, you try a stone, it sinks with your 
weight, at last you reach a tussock and looking around you, dis- 
cover the brooklet at the edge of the swamp, completely covered 
with bushes and vines, prepared to resist all your efforts to part 
them. In my case a friendly bullfrog under a neighboring tus- 
sock bellowed forth its " better go rrrr-ound," and I agreed with 
it. A few steps to the right and the swamp was cleared, while 
further up the mountain side, I found the spring I sought, 
cooped up and covered over with slabs. In the first glow of gen- 
erous indignation one feels like tearing off these slabs and re- 
storing the imprisoned spring to freedom. But such an action 
would be trespass, says the law— criminal trespass. Therefore 
the sunbeams may not kiss it in the morning, nor the western 
breeze with soft caress quiet its laboring heart at the close of 
day. Never, while this pent house remains, shall it feel the 
timid touch of the grass that once crept close beside it to listen 
II ] 



to its bubbling story, nor can a single wild flower sympathetically 
drop a petal on its bosom. Tear off these slabs ! Remove this 
bandage from its eyes ! Too long already has it suffered these 
indignities. Let it see again the trees, the rocks, and the great 
blue sky, and in the midnight silence let it reflect, as once it re- 
flected, the far off stars. 

The owner hears not my passionate appeal, nor would 
he heed it if he heard, but possibly some future mountain 
gust that knows no obligation to the law of trespass may one 
day do all that my heart and hand desire. To the mountain gust 
I leave it. 

On these slopes, near this spring, more than a century ago, 
John Owen hoped a home might be erected for his poorer Seventh 
Day Baptist brethren, who were scattered over Nantmeal, some 
near the headwaters of the Brandywine, and others along 
French Creek. For this purpose he generously devised his 
farm of one hundred and eighty-one acres "in West Nantmeal 
(now Honeybrook), on a branch of the Brandywine, to the con- 
gregation of people residing there and the places adjacent, 
which congregation are a people of British extraction, which 
profess with me in the following articles, of keeping the Seventh 
Day, Sabbath and Water Baptism, and denying the use of the 
carnal sword and legal oath, and all the rigour of the law of na- 
tions, to be to them made use of as an Alms House for the 
benefit of the poor and necessitous which shall stand in need of 
relief, and are not in capacity to help themselves." 

Owen's purpose was a noble one, the proposed relief was 
greatly needed, the site selected by him was admirable, and the 
materials for building were ample and close at hand. There 
was abundant timber on the mountains and the fields were full 
of stones, so full, in fact, that the very courses in his deeds were 
not content to call for one, but insisted upon " heaps " to mark 
their endings. 

[ " 



For some reason, however, his hope failed of realization, 
and in 1832, the tract devised by him to his Seventh Day Baptist 
brethren, was conveyed by them to Jarmin Hughes. Had Owen's 
project only been successful, some Presbyterians might have 
been tempted to turn Seventh Day Baptists. Could any unfor- 
tunate son of Adam— unless his fancy was altogether ex- 
tinguished by his misfortunes— fail to experience a certain 
sombre pleasure in contemplating as a refuge for his closing 
years, such a mountain home, with its pure water and purer air? 
Even if his reflections took on a melancholic tinge as he remem- 
bered how often the gifts of charity are perverted by sordid ad- 
ministrators, he might still find consolation in the very location. 
Not every almshouse when its larders are empty can regale its 
inmates with mouthfuls of beauty. 

In visiting Honeybrook Township, it is well to have your 
valet carry with him a copy of Futhey's " History of Chester 
County," or, if like the writer, you are so fortunate as to have 
no valet, take your knife and cut out the mass of dead matter in 
the latter half of the volume, and carry the historical portion 
yourself. Open this out on some old bowlder, sit down beside it 
and look around you. It will surprise you how fresh and inter- 
esting some of these pages which you have hitherto regarded 
as dry as dust, will become : how their 
skeleton facts and figures will invest 
themselves with stories and borrow 
beauty from the surrounding land- 
scape. The fragrance of the wild rose 
falls upon me as I write these lines. 

A few rods from where I sit its sweet scented blossoms deco- 
rate a worm eaten post in a boundary fence. 

" Roslein, roslein, roslein, roth," 

no wonder Goethe loved you. 

The township of Honeybrook, in which the Brandy wine takes 

13] 




its rise, dates from 1789, and boasts both its ancestry and size. 
It is an offspring of old Nantmel, and is the largest township in 
the county. As far back as 1734 an attempt was made to carve 
a township bearing its name, out of the western end of Nantmel, 
but the petition for such division, although numerously signed, 
was rejected by the Court. Of the various reasons assigned for 
favorable action, perhaps the most important was embodied in 
the following language : 

" Settled in the uttermost bounds of this County, when this 
township was laid out we were very few settlers, which occa- 
sioned it to be larger and now moste of it being settled we find 
the largeness of it to be very detrimental to most of the in- 
habitants for when a road is to be laid or repaired in one end of 
the township the inhabitants of the other end which are at least 
twenty miles distant will be obliged to spend three days to do 
one days's work which is a very gi'eat hardship." 

What a field for an ethnologist Honeybrook presents. Two 
centuries ago, according to the words of the petition I have 
quoted, this very ground over which many of us pass so carelessly 
to-day, was inhabited by men possessing such peculiar traits of 
character as apparently to astound the judges at Chester then, 
and certainly to excite skepticism now. Nor can this skepticism 
be regarded as wholly irrational, when one considers, that, not- 
withstanding the many years that churches and school houses 
have been preaching the dignity of labor, and the length of time 
that has elapsed since the legislature appointed an annual holi- 
day for its consideration, not Diogenes himself with a well 
trimmed lamp, could to-day discover within the limits of this 
county, a lineal or collateral descendant of these original set- 
tlers, whose virility would protest against his spending three 
whole days in doing one day's public work. I have heard it 
doubted whether such a specimen could be found even among 
our public officials, selected as we all know with scrupulous care. 

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Had the fondness for labor which characterized the old settlers 
of Nantmel only been capable of transmission, what choice 
Commissioners their descendants would have made. " o tem- 
poral mores!" 




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'5 ] 



THE WELSH MOUNTAINS. 



"Wide and sweet the flowers are blowing 
By tiiat streamlet's side, 
And a greener verdure showing 

Where Its waters glide- 
Down the hill-slope murmuring on, 
Over root and mossy stone." 

WhiUier — The Fountain. 

HE townships of Honeybrook, West Nant- 
meal and Wallace, with the exception of 
a small part of the southeastern portion 
of Honeybrook, lie in what might be 
called a valley, bounded on the north 
and west by the Welsh Mountains, and 
on the south by the Barren Hill. To 
a geologist this region exhibits interest- 
ing evidences of many of the upheavals and some of the erup- 
tions which have given the surface of 
the earth its present form. Bowlders of 
gneiss abound in many places. Seated 
on one of these geological mile stones. 
Professor James McClune made his de- 
ductions, and concluded that the cur- 
rents of ice which carried them here, pursued a southerly or 
southwesterly course. 

[16 






Abe Buzzard. 




What a power there is in geological vision. Here where I 
sit and see only the branches of the Brandywine draining this 
tract of land, McClune saw the mighty 
glacial currents passing with slow, re- 
sistless movement, carrying portions of 
the Welsh Mountains to the Manor 
Meeting House and Sandy Hill. 

The general course of the Eastern 
Brandywine from its source in the 
Welsh Mountains to the borough of 
Downingtown, is southward thi'ough Honeybrook until it ap- 
proaches Cupola in the adjoining township of West Nantmeal, 
where it bends to the east and continues easterly through the 
southern part of the township. Entering Wallace Township 
from the west it flows southeastwardly to its border, then on 
past Dorian's Mills. About a mile below these mills it turns to 
the south and maintains a southerly course to Downingtown. 
From Wallace to Downingtown it forms the boundary line of 
several townships : East Brandywine and Cain lying on the 
west, and Upper Uwchlan, Lower Uwchlan and East Cain, on the 
east. 

Standing at either source of the eastern branch the specta- 
tor's view northward is shut off by the Welsh Mountains, a 
ridge of sandstone formation covered with scrubby oak and 
chestnut, bounding the northern margin of Honeybrook Town- 
ship and running in a southwestern direction from the village of 
Springfield in West Nantmeal, to Earl Township in the county of 
Lancaster. Traversed as they are by numerous roads, the ascent 
of these mountains is not difficult ; nor are they high enough to 
be impressive, except perhaps at evening, when the clouds 
gather and from a distance you catch " a vague and momentary 
glimpse which leaves you in doubt whether you gaze on hill 
or cloud." In the clear sunlight of a July day, they have a 

17 ] 



dwarfish appearance, unrelieved by jutting peaks or frowning 
crags. From time to time, their shady recesses have been the 
haunts of thieves who live on poultry and trade in horses. 
" Shaken out of destiny's dice box," it was here that " Abe Buz- 
zard " and his notorious companions found their home. In the 
obscure retreats with which this region abounds, they eluded 
their pursuers and concealed such booty as chance threw in their 
way. Even yet, although Buzzard has long been immured in the 
Lancaster County jail, timid travellers, with hesitation after 
nightfall, climb the summits of these mountains and start with 
apprehension at the rustling of the leaves, lest the figure of the 
outlaw spring forth from behind some thick set bush or clump 
of chestnuts. 

To enjoy the scenery of the Brandywine few demands are 
made upon the tourist. One need only possess but a clear eye 
and the slightest development of the sense of beauty. The 
qualities which Robert Buchanan asserted as essential for visi- 
tors who would properly appreciate the Land of Lome, are quite 
unnecessary here. Few Americans can "patiently relinquish 
their energetic identity to become a tarn or mirror," and fewer 
still " can acquire the conviction that rain is beautiful, and that 
to be wet through twice or thrice a day is not undesirable." 

But, enough of prefatory remarks, let us follow the stream. 
From the nearer spring to the road where I first saw the brook- 
lets, the distance is somewhat over three hundred yards ; from 
the further spring to the road, the distance is at least one hun- 
dred and fifty yai'ds more. South of this road not more than a 
stone's throw, the two brooklets meet a third one and unite their 
waters. With a joyous leap, the stream thus formed crosses the 
Morgantown road and starts for the Delaware. How sportive it 
seems ! How eager to enter upon its long and devious course ! 
With what graceful sinuosity it moves through these upper 
meadows of Honeybrook, now showing its head to the sun, now 

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diving beneath the tangled roots of fallen trees, and now con- 
cealing its body entirely under the alder bushes which line its 
banks. On approaching the Reading railroad it discloses itself 
for a moment and then disappears beneath the bridge. 

This branch of the Reading system, more familiarly known 
as the Wilmington and Northern, is associated with the Western 
Brandywine for fifty miles, and is a remarkable piece of rail- 
road construction. In the main it consists of a collection of 
curves : curves of low degree and high degree, harmonic and ir- 
regular, sinister and dextral, curves with functions, and curves 
without functions, curves that find their expression in algebraic 
symbols, and curves which transcend the power of mathematics 
to express them, all are here— here in profusion : parabolic forms 
for geometers and diabolic forms for passengers. Travellers 
taking this road for the first time, have been heard to say that 
there are no three consecutive points lying in the same direction 
from Wilmington to Reading. Doubtless there is extrava- 
gance in this statement, but it is not unusual to find a passenger 
train occupying three of these curves, while a freight often 
lengthens itself out over four or five. It has been asserted that 
a great number of them were introduced for the purpose of en- 
abling its patrons to see both sides of the road at the same time, 
but with equal positivity I have heard it maintained that the 
comfort of the passengers was not considered at all, the aim 
of the engineer being rather to demonstrate that in railroad 
construction a straight line is unnecessary and useless. Some 
ignorant and presumptuous people have suggested that he merely 
conformed the line to the sinuous course of the stream, while 
others, naturally suspicious, find the explanation in the terms 
of the conti'act, which they declare provided for extra compen- 
sation for every curve. If so, the engineer's bill must have con- 
sisted entirely of extras. Perhaps the real reason will never be 
known. Meanwhile the road will continue to afford its patrons 

19] 



t--#!^ 







such facilities of view, such altei'ations of sunshine and shadow, 
as are furnished by no other road in the country. With a little 
more sharpening of the curves, a husband in the smoking car 
can enjoy a chat with his wife as he passes her on some up-grade 
curve, and the conductor communicate his orders to the engineer 
without the use of a rope or other uncertain signal. 

From this railroad 
bridge, I look backward 
on the way that I have 
come, and take my last 
view of the Brandy- 
wine's mountain home. 
The falling dew admon- 
ishes me that it is later 
than I thought, but 
even yet, through the 
dusk of the evening I 
can distinguish my course of travel. Is it merely an illusion, or 
are the clouds really resting on the tops of yonder mountains that 
stand with sentinel solidity about the cradle of this stream? 
How still the air is. The lingering hum of the train that went 
whizzing by me has ceased— the whistle of the Bob- white alone 
breaks the silence— the world is at peace. A few moments later 
and the clouds have settled on the mountains, twilight has 
merged into darkness, and the stream I hope to follow in the 
morning has gone to sleep beneath the alders. 



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TOWARD CUPOLA. 



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" All ye who would be in the right 
In health and purse, begin your day to date 
From daybreak, and when coffined at fourscore. 
Engrave upon your plate, you rose at four." 

Byron — Do7i Juan. 

Do not doubt that there is much merit in 
the old saw that Byron incorporated in 
his verse, but for the coffin plates of most 
of us some other inscription will have to 
be devised. Five o'clock is early enough 
for the cock to crow, even in Honeybrook. 
At five o'clock I heard it, and waking, 
found myself in the Talbot Homestead. 
Already the Sun was peeping through the window, shooting his 
searching glances here and there, and I arose at once to meet 
him. The Sun and I had long been friends. While I had never 
" sat up all night to see him rise," as Byron said he f i*equently 
did, I had made it my habit to take his side of the street and the 
car, and he in return had rarely intruded upon the privacy of 
my chamber or disturbed my repose. On 
awakening, I saw at once that it v/as the 
same old friendly July Sun, but the Morn- 
ing to which he introduced me was so dif- 
ferent from any of her sisters whom I had 
seen before, that I started with surprise. 
She looked so fresh, so fair, so buoyant— this rosy cheeked 
daughter of the mountain— that I accepted with pleasure her in- 
vitation for a stroll. Along roads lined with silver poplars, 

21 ] 




liifiiiiiiiiiiiniiiii 



through meadows redolent of mint, we passed, delicious in- 
fluences everywhere abounding. What depths of gi-een lay on 
the pasture lands ! What glorious greetings came from every 
rock and tree ! Eye, ear, and soul, alike were charmed. The 




misty veil that night had hung above the Brandywine was part- 
ing. I stood and watched it disappearing in the sky— watched it 
till it resolved itself in air, and then I cast my eyes about the 
fields; on every bush the spiders' webs were glistening, and 
the whole country side was bathed in light. 

Often since, in crowded cities, awakened by the rattle of 
lumbering wagons, disturbed by the jar of electric cars, weary in 
body and jaded in spirit, I have opened the window of some stulfy 
upper room, and as the smoke from a multitude of factories went 
swirling by, settling down upon the houses and obscuring every 
object in the streets, memories of that morning on the hills of 
Honeybrook have transformed the scene, and I have heard, midst 
the din of traffic, the splash of a mountain stream. 

From the bridge on the Wilmington and Northern Railroad 
to the bridge on the Waynesburg Branch of the Pennsylvania 

[ 22 







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Railroad, the course of the Brandywine is about a mile. Veri- 
fication of this distance can only be had by walking in the 
stream. To walk along its bank looks easy, but experience will 
greatly modify your views. Inexperienced myself, I took the 
right bank, but soon concluded I was wrong, for there on the 
left, was a well worn cattle path apparently paralleling the 
stream. Assuming that the cattle had adopted the line of least 
resistance, I jumped across and walked a quarter of a mile or so, 
only to discover that the path had led me away from the creek 
into the middle of a blackberry patch, where it abruptly ended. 
How did the cows get out? An interesting problem— but after 
debating it for a half hour on a hot day, it is wise to abandon it 
and feast upon the berries. I found them ripe, luscious, and 
plentiful, but as the bushes showed no signs of yielding, the 
choice was given me of going back or crawling toward the 
stream. I chose the former, and soon found a soft, green bank, 
in the cool shadows of some tender maples, which lovingly en- 
twined their arms above me. 

What a hiding place for trout that pool is, fifty feet below me, 
where the stream makes such an elbow, where the water laps 
the roots of that old oak and forms a little eddy. As usual I 
have no line, but if I had, how could I reach the pool ? Float 
the bait on a little piece of bark, you say, float it till it reaches 
the spot, give a deft turn of the wrist, and the bait will fall into 
the gaping mouth of the fish beneath. Tinily the theory has 
much to commend it, but the season is past, and what if there be 
no trout ? There was a time when many a catch came from this 
stream, but alas ! its pools have lost their fairest tenants and the 
flash of the trout is seldom seen. 

About half way between the railroad bridges I have men- 
tioned, a creek comes running in from the east, and the banks of 
the Brandywine begin to spread. Its waters deepen at this 
point, but their purity is sensibly impaired. For the first time I 

23 ] 



hear the drop of a mud turtle, for the first time I find myself 
looking for a snake. Doubtless the ragged roots of a blasted 
beech in front of me, twisting and curling into the middle of the 
stream suggest the thought, and other thoughts come tripping 
after it. 

The union of these waters— how well it illustrates the sad 
reflections of Cowper's "Love Abused." What! Didactics in 
summertime! "Table Talk" by the Brandy wine! Why not? 
It was Cooper who sang " God made the country and man made 
the town," besides, I love the poet 

" who scribbled rhyme 
To catch the triflers of his time, 

and what fitter place for moralizing could be found than this ? 
What better time ? Here, where my text is furnished by the 
stream and my companion Dr. Wisner — a missionary from 
China— stands ready to pass upon the orthodoxy of my views. 

" Reserve your moralizings for yourself," you cry. The ad- 
vice is good and inexpensive, and perchance I need it most, at 
least I will forbear to utter it, and as for poetry, I pledge myself 
to be as abstinent as the stream will let me, for I hold religiously 
with him whose poetiy I know the best, 

" between friend and friend 
Prose answers every common end." 

Meanwhile the Brandywine has hurried on and sought again 
its favorite cover. Again, I try to force my way, again the briers 
scratch and tear me, till I feel like turning back and giving up 
the chase, when suddenly I come on fields sown thick with rocks, 
and see but a gunshot ahead of me- the Waynesburg Railroad 
bridge. 

The road is popularly known as " The Huckleberry Line," 
on which attempts to speed are positively forbidden. Its essen- 
tial qualities are medicinal. Not that I would detract from 
its aesthetical claim to patronage, for its merit in this re- 

[ 24 



spect is familiar to every one who uses it. From its start- 
ing point in Downingtown it stretches out its iron length 
in graceful undulations to the little trestle bridge on which 
I stand. For fifteen miles it gives its passengers kaleido- 
scopic views of rippling waters, spanned by rustic bridges, 
decked with vines of brightest green and flanked by lofty but- 
tonwoods white with age, beneath whose branches solitary figures 
stand as if they had been moulded there by nature— figures of 
fishermen, who never raise their heads nor give an answer to 
your questioning looks. These views the railroad furnishes with 
every train, but sufferers from blues, and those who, like Emile, 
are "troubled with ennui," and constantly complain of "civiliza- 
tion's railroad evenness," should take the noon train north- 
ward — a train made up exclusively of freight cars with one 
long coupled coach. Tickets are issued at the usual rates 
and call for a "continuous passage " — a railroad synonym for con- 
stant motion. Backwards and forwards, on side tracks and 
main tracks, the Company faithfully observes its printed con- 
tract and prepares the invalid for further treatment at its sta- 
tions. At each of these, three bumps are given him— not 
common bumps, but generous bumps, resultant bumps, three 
nicely graduated bumps arranged by engineers of long ex- 
perience, three bumps that follow like successive breakers on 
the beach. To speak with accuracy, the first feels more like 
broken surf that warns you of the power behind it, the second, 
well— as I interpret it, the mission of the second is to tell the 
inexperienced that the third is close at hand. For chronic suf- 
ferers the latter two are sometimes merged in one. When this 
is known beforehand, I have heard it said, a torpid liver really 
leaps in expectation. 

What inspiration a ride on the Waynesburg Branch would 
have given John G. Saxe? What abundance of materials for 
some additional stanzas to his " Rhyme of the Rail ?" I never 

25 ] 



take a seat in one of these cars myself without first looking, 
with a pitying eye, to see if any " Market-woman " is aboard, 

" Feeling that the smash, 
When it comes will surely 
Send her eggs to pot 
Rather prematurely." 

The first station on the Waynesburg line below this trestle 



bridge beai-s the 
suggestive name 
of " Forrest." In- 
stinctively you 
glance around for 
some wide-spread- 
ing woods, but 
look in vain, for 




none is here. The 
spelling of this 
station name is 
not, as you at first 
supposed, an or- 
thographical mis- 
take of some il- 
literate railroad 



painter too lavish of his letters, nor was the name when 
given, intended to express the woodiness of the surrounding 
country. The truth is, that the railroad company borrowed it, 
and by its borrowing, rescued from oblivion the memory of an 
owner of a fann close by. At the time of its application to 
the station the trees that lined the railroad track were neither tall 
nor large of girth. In 1880, when McClune counted the annual 
ring growths of a number of large oak trees then felled, he 
could find none that exceeded one hundred and fifty. To-day 
not a single giant of the forest remains to tell the story 
of the Nanticokes. According to McClune's views, at the 
time this section of country was settled, the forests, while ex- 
tensive, were far from dense. By frequent fires, the Indians 
thinned the timber and kept it thin ; on the high ground, for 
greater facility in pursuing deer, in the low ground and valleys, 
to enable them to hunt the buffalo. "The tradition is," says 
he, " that a wagon could be driven anywhere without difficulty 
through the standing timber." 

[ 26 



z 



o 



to 




This is but tradition, however, and tradition, it must be 
borne in mind, is not always reliable. Some investigators have 
taken issue with McClune, but all agree with him that after 
the retirement of the Indians, the growth of the timber here 
was rapid, and about the period of the Revolutionary War, the 
forests were dense. 

Southward from Forrest station about two hundred yards, 
stands the first covered bridge over the Eastern Brandy\vine. 
To most of us bridges are interesting objects, whether we are 
able to analyze out interest in them or not. For me such inter- 
est dates a long way back. Caius Julius Caesar ! can I ever for- 
get the time when I first assisted in reconstructing a bridge over 
the Rhine in accordance with directions set down by thee with 
such explicitness in thy Commentaries on the Gallic War ? 

To those who, like myself, have struggled with " tigtui 
sesqitipedalia," or operated the " fistuca," the bridge at 
" Forrest " presents no constructional difficulties. It is a modest 
little structure resting upon stone abutments, the distance 







between which is only about forty feet. In summer, it decks itself 
with climbing ivy ; in winter, loves to show a snowy cap. An 
27 ] 



eighth of a mile below the bridge, the stream widens into Cupola 
dam, and enters the township of West Nantmeal. Picturesquely 
beautiful as West Nantmeal is, I yet leave Honeybrook with much 
regret, for in Honeybrook are the sources of the Brandywine, 
and thy sources, 0, Brandywine, are peculiarly dear to me. 

Indian, settler, and slave, have all drunk of thy waters, have 
all felt the subtle influence of thy beauty, have all listened to 
thy ever changing, never ending song. 

When wearied of the chase, thy Indian lover stretched 
himself upon the soft green turf beside thee, thou didst gently 
whisper to him all the secrets of thy stream ; didst sing to him 
of shady pools and bright-eyed trout, of greenest cresses and 
fair-blooming flowers; and when at last delicious dreaminess 
came over him, when full of thy story, his tired head sank back 
upon its mossy pillow, thou didst fill his dreams with sweetest 
strains of rippling music. 

But thy Indian lover left thee, and the rude settler found 
thee, found thee in the depths of a mighty forest, in whose shad- 
ows thou didst then delight. Enchanted with thy beauty, he 
laid his axe aside and bade thee sing for him. He heard thy song 

" of peaceful quietude, 
Where weary-eyed ambition comes not near," 

and having heard it, built his house beside thy stream. 



[ 28 




'The Waynesbukg Railkoau BuiDiii:.'" Page 24. 



OLD NANTMEL. 




' Give me a cottage on some Cambrian wild, 

Where far from cities I may spend my days ; 
And, by the beauty of the scene beguiled. 

May pity man's pursuits, and shun his ways." 

Henry Kirke White — Sonnets. 

HAT'S in a name? For many, noth- 
ing ; for some, something ; for a few, 
everything. What does Nantmeal sig- 
nify ? To the poHtician f amiHar with 
registries, intent only on maintain- 
ing his power by securing the offices 
of his county, Nantmeal's fittest ex- 
pression is an arithmetical one, Nantmeal means four hundred 
votes. 

To the business man who hurries through the township on 
the cars, snugly ensconced in an upholstered seat behind his 
newspaper, which shuts out every wooded hill and pleasant val- 
ley, Nantmeal often signifies still less ; to such a man, calcu- 
lating the rise in pork, or fall in sugar, and catching no glimpse of 
merry streams from either window, Nantmeal signifies nothing. 
But to the Welshman who climbed these hills and looked down 
upon these rich, green fields, so bountifully blessed with flowing 
water, this strange country seemed a reflection of his own beloved 
home across the sea. He called it Nantmel— the land of the 
"sweet stream." 
29 ] 



As early as 1717-19, surveys were made at the head of the 
North Branch of the Brandywine, for WilHam Iddings, or Hed- 
dings, as he is sometimes called, Howell Powell, David Thomas, 
John Moore, Thomas Callowhill, William Trego, Richard Piersol, 
and others, of whom a few were Scotch, and others distinctively 
Welsh. The Welsh settlers for the most part confined their 
settlements to the eastern end of the township, leaving the 
western end for the Scotch Irish, who came up from the south- 
western section of the county. 

In the character of her early settlers Nantmel was specially 
blessed. They were intelligent, patriotic, religious and force- 
ful. To the land of their adoption they brought the high 
qualities generated in the land of their birth. With equal pride 
one sang of Derry and the Boyne, and the other pointed to the 
title of " fair England's heir," as a national recognition of his 
country's prowess. Welsh and Scotch Irish alike had come 
hither to question and to work. For both, life had meaning 
and problems. To the solution of these problems they brought 
keen insight and devout hearts. 

One marvels at results so quickly achieved by their energy 
and practicality. Scarcely was the clay dry on their rude log 
huts, till timbers were hewn for school houses, and stones col- 
lected for a church. Almost the first complaint that we hear 
from Nantmel comes from some laborers compelled to put a road 
in order that led to a meeting house. 

" Too have been called this day upon the said road by our 
Supervisor, where too have labored in mudd and watter to the 
endangering of our health a Bridging said Swamps and Yet a 
Road unoccupied by Carts or Wagons and but few Travellers 
Yea ye Voteries for Said Road within our Town was only three 
or four persons yt- wanted a Road to ye Meeting House and 
these said persons seem to be against ye Town threatening us 
with presenting and fineing from Time to Time and thus they 

[30 










X 



Insult, without we shall now in such Extreim Cold, (the petition 
is marked November 29) Labor from Day to Day Succisively 
Bridging said Swamps which is not for a public but only for ye 
accommodation of these persons to Ride to ye Meeting." 

Hard as the conditions were in these upper settlements, it 
was not all labor. Night came to them as it comes to us. When 
the long day's work was done, the Welshman threw down his 
axe, took his pipe in hand, and gathering his children about 
him, beguiled the evening hours with stories of the fatherland. 
He knew his country's history— knew it well. From the Severn 
Sea to the Sands o' Dee he could picture her " fields of dying " 
and her "corners of shouting." With honest pride he would 
recount (it was a part of his creed) how the Normans, who sub- 
dued England in seven years, were unable to conquer Wales in 
two hundred. There are few more interesting figures than 
that of the Welshman complacently contemplating his fruitful 
genealogical tree, or jollily singing 

"Of Ayron's vale, 
Where the nymphs are gay and the swains are hale." 

The outlines of his Scotch Irish neighbor on the adjoining 
farm are a trifle harder. He sang less and calculated more. 
He stored his mind with Solomonic maxims, knew little of gene- 
alogy outside of the Scriptures, but was a ready reckoner of ac- 
counts. When his soul sought relief in music it found it in old 
"Dundee." 

The early settlers of Nantmel were provident,— the Scotch 
Irish particularly so. "A Welshman," remarked Penn, "can 
live on a broom." When necessary, a Scotch Irishman can 
live on its stick. In thriftiness he knows no equal. An ad- 
dress from the inhabitants of West Nantmel to the President of 
the Court at Chester and his associates, in 1764, contains 
this most significant statement : " The poor of our township 
has been chiefly in the East end and they ( the inhabitants of 

31 ] 



the west end) have said they are unwilling to pay poor tax 
any longer." 

Contemplating the monuments which the Scotch Irish set- 
tler left behind him, even so calm and judicial a writer as 
Futhey, felt a strange stirring of soul. The horizon of the 
county whose history he was writing, seemed to expand till it 
embraced the State, and the figure of the settler grew colossal : 
" Pennsylvania owes much of what she is to-day to the fact that 
so many of these people settled within her borders. Probably 
not less than five millions of people in America have the blood 
of these Scotch and Scotch Irish in their veins, and there is not 
one of them, man or woman, that is not proud of it, or that 
would exchange it for any other lineage. . . . They were de- 
voted to the cause of their country. Such a thing as a Scotch 
Irish Tory was unheard of. The race never produced one. It 
was the energy and devotion of this people that sustained the 
army in the field in the many dark hours of that contest, and 
which, under the guidance of Providence, carried this country 
successfully through the struggle for freedom." 

The Welsh settler had many of the best characteristics of 
the Scotch Irish, an almost equal measure of his stubborn- 
ness and some quaint conceits besides. Mindful of his virtues, 
we can forgive him his curious hallucinations in regard to the 
antiquity of the Cymric tongue ; we can even agree with him 
that no other tongue will answer for his corner of the world at 
the last day, but we can not— in justice to Adam— concede that 
he used this tongue in Paradise to express his love to Eve, that 
is, if he had the choice of any other. I could as well believe 
that Eve was wooed upon the Scotch bagpipes. Even a Welsh 
enthusiast must admit it was a short time for Eve to acquire a 
knowledge of its inales of permutation. It is a great question, 
but as it is only indirectly related to the Brandywine, let it 
pass. 

[ 32 



Along the Northern Brandywine the Welshman left but few 
memorials behind him. 

" His language now no longer breathes, 

Its strange, wild music through the scene, 
But here and there a name still wreathes 

His memory in perpetual green. 
Tredyffrin, Cain and Nantmeal bold 

Traditions of those sires of old ; 
While Uwchlan in her inmost vale 

May hear at Eve some Cambrian tale." 

Nantmel originally was an exceedingly large township, em- 
bracing the present townships of Honeybrook, East and West 
Nantmeal, Wallace and Warwick, but it was not so large as those 
who favored its division were accustomed to represent it, alleging, 
as they did, that its northeastern boundary was the Schuylkill. 

When the first petition for a division of Nantmel was pre- 
sented to the Court, in 1734, the line suggested began at the 
boundary of Lancaster county above the head of a small branch of 
Brandywine, called George Creek, " which runneth between the 
land of Davis Thomas and the plantation of William Iddings." 

33 ] 



William Iddings was the owner of two hundred acres of land 
"situate on the Branches of Brandywine and French Creek." 
Upon his death in 1726, his three sons acquired title to the prop- 
erty, in whose possession it remained for several years. Finally 
it was subdivided into various farms, and the name of Iddings 
disappeared from the assessments of Nantmel. 

One day, while looking over the files in the Register's of- 
fice, I came across the will of Richard Iddings (an uncle of Wil- 
liam's), the first settler in Nantmel upon whose estate letters 
were granted by the Register of Chester. It was not a large es- 
tate that Richard left behind him— only a few cows and the 
simplest household utensils, consisting of " three bowls, two iron 
potts and two boxes." A shilling a piece was all the treasure 
he could leave his children— no, not all— he left besides, the 
legacy of a good man's memory. In the fear of God he lived, 
in the name of God he began his last, perhaps his most import- 
ant document : " In the name of God Amen. I Richard Iddings 
bequeath my soul into the hands of AUmighty God my maker, 
hoping that through the meritorious death and pation of Jesus 
Christ my only Saviour to reseve free pardon and foregiveness 
of all my sins." " What a quaint old will," exclaims one. " What 
an antiquated form," remarks another. Nay, rather,— What a 
noble confession. What a consolatory hope. What a fitting 
ending of a simple life. 

In February, 1739-40, another division of Nantmel was pro- 
posed, based on an equalization of swamps : 

" Our Reason," say the petitioners, " is as followeth : The 
Provincial road Lately Lay'd out Leading from Conestogoe To 
the Iron Works crosses two very bad Swamps or Marches,— 
the one called Logan's meadow and the other Ann Roberts' 
swamp, and if the Devision line ran as above mentioned, it will be 
Pretty near equal in Distance and Roberts' swamp will be in the 
Lower Devision or Township and Logan's meadow in the Uper." 

[34 



About six months later, the east and the west end each chose 
two representatives to divide the township. These representa- 
tives failed to agree, and John Goheen was called in as umpire. 




The line finally established, began " at the spring near Edward 
George's house, thence to Brandywine and so on to Cain Town- 
ship." 

35 ] 



That " ye course of ye water " had for several years been 
a well recognized line of division between the inhabitants of the 
eastern and western ends of Nantmel is apparent from the con- 
clusion of the petition in which the Court is asked to note " that 
it is and ever was customary in s<' Township that the inhabitants 
on the West side of said Run were never called upon for duty or 
public service to the East end of s^i Town, nor the East end in- 
habitants ever called to any Service to the West end of s'' Town 
over s'l Run." 

East Nantmeal was afterwards divided into two townships, 
and West Nantmeal into three. 

Driving along the Brandywine through any of the town- 
ships once embraced in Nantmel, it is hard to conjure up 
the conditions of those early days. Possibly, some of them are 
as accurately sketched in the remonstrance to an application of 
Francis Edwards for a road, filed in 1731, as in any other single 
paper. 

In the winter of that year Edwards presented his petition 
to the Court of Quarter Sessions, stating that he had laid out 
" his whole substance in building a corn mill in Nantmel to ac- 
commodate his neighborhood, there being nothing of that kind 
within four or five miles of his place, which he hath with great 
difficulty at last effected. But not having any road to his said 
mill a great part of the custom which first put him upon it can 
not reap the benefit of the cheiff design of its building which is 
a very great hardship both to them and your petitioner." In 
conclusion, Edwards asked for a road from the Lancaster line to 
his mill. 

This petition, while an old one, has a most familiar sound. 
It reads like an application of a modern hotel keeper setting 
foi'th his generous self-denial in building a house exclusively 
for the accommodation of a needy and suffering public— ex- 
pressing his willingness to undertake the conduct of the same 

[ 36 



H 
o 

■si 

> 

a 

W 
> 
Pi 

CO 

o 

2 



fa 
CD 




and asking only for the Court's official recognition of his altru- 
istic spirit. 

Against this petition of Edwards the combined wisdom of 
the Welsh and Scotch drafted a remonstrance, which I quote, 
not for my lay readers, who may pass it by without loss, but for 
my legal friends, who will be delighted to add to their store of 
pleading a novel form of absque hoc. 

" Your petitioners understand that Francis Edwards an In- 
habitant of our s'' Township hath provided a Petition to be Ex- 
hibited unto you requesting a Road from ye line of the County 
of Lancaster Thro, our s-J Township, w^i road if granted will 
be of unsupportable charge to us your Petitioners. Neither can 
it be of Much Benefit to the s^ Francis as shall hereafter be 
made appear. 

And first as to the Charge it will bring upon us your Peti- 
tioners: the s<^' road must pass thro a Meadow belonging to 
James Logan w^i is about thirty poles wide and so swampy that 
Horses cannot pass through it & the makeing a bridge across it 
will we Concede amount to between ten and fifteen pounds 
Charge— then there's another Swamp and Creek belonging to the 
widdow Roberts wd' cannot be avoided and w^h we Conceive 
will amount to about five Pounds Charge, then as to the Charge 
of Opening the s'^' Road and w^h will be about six miles long 
we judge it will not Cost very Little Less than five pounds 
more. Secondly as to the pretended advantage the s^ road will 
be to the s*^ Francis, its well known that those who live beyond 
the aforesaid two meadows are Inhabitants of the County of 
Lancaster and have a mill known by the name of Kitch Millers 
Mill wch is nearer to them and a far Better Mill so that some 
out of this our Township have gone to it tho farther from them 
for grinding and those who are the s^ Francis's Chief Cus- 
tomers & your Petitioners do not see that they have any occasion 
of Such a road & if it be urged that it is Designed to be made a 

37] 



March's Mill & so may hope for Custom from beyond the aforesd 
Meadows wee Conceive there's Little Likelyhood of that, see- 
ing the s^' Mill (tho it hath been built two or three years) has 
no covering but a few boards Nailed over it Neither is there any 
Place to receive Corn, it being all open to the weather Except 
what's sheltered by the aforementioned Boards, w^'' serve only 
for a Roof ; & if there were a place to receive Corn the Distance 
from the s'' Mill to Philad^ and the way so bad that's it's not Likely 
to be a place of much Trade & the road, if ever there be one 
from the s'l Mill to Philad-^ must run yet farther thro our s'' 

Township, There being but 
one way as we know of thats 
down to Saml Nutts Iron 
Works, well road from the s<i 
mill to ye said Iron works 
will be about two Miles and 
will not, we Conceive, Cost 
Less that five or six pounds 
more, there being a Large 
Swamp and Creek to pass, so 
that the s<^ road, if Gi-anted, will According to the Best of our 
Judgm', Cost us near thirty pounds, besides a road already Laid 
out from the s-' Iron Works to Uwchlan thro our s^i Township, 
well Township of ours, as it now stands, is near Sixteen miles 
long, and yett are we unable to pay but about four Pounds Tax 
and not so much as that till this Last Year, as may be made 
to appear by the Duplicates ; therefore we Humbly Crave that 
in Consideration of the Vast Charge the Aforementioned road 
will, (if Granted), unavoidably bring upon us, your Petitioners, 
& our inability to support the same, you will be Pleased not 
any ways to Countinance the aforementioned Petition." 




LEWIS'S Little Mill. 



[38 




Gl 
CO 

60 
03 



&3 

r. 



< 
Q 

S 

o 

35 

a: 



St. MARK'S. 




' Go, Traveller, and remember, when the pomp 
Of early glory fades, that one good deed, 
Unseen, unheard, unnoted by mankind. 
Lives in the eternal register of Heaven." 

Sonihey — Inscriptions. 

N the summit of a hill to the east of 
the public road that forms the bound- . 
ary line between the townships of 
West Nantmeal and Honey brook— a 
little more than a mile to the north of 
Cupola — stands the Episcopal church 
of St. Mark's. Looking southeast- 
wardly from the cemetery which adjoins the church and com- 
mands a rich and pleasing prospect of undulating country, one 
can see the spire of Fairview about seven miles distant, while 
southwardly and nearer by several miles, the recently erected 
belfry of Brandywine Manor rises. One afternoon in the sum- 
mer of 1904, as the photographer who accompanied me was ar- 
ranging his camera by the roadside, I entered the gateway of 
the cemetery, and began to examine its monuments and graves. 
On the farther side I came across the sexton busily engaged in 
trimming lots. "The finest cemetery in the State," said he. 
"Such an opinion is pardonable in one who has never seen 
Oakland," I replied, and then recognizing that the sentiment was 
39] 



one that did him honor, and feeling that I had done my duty to 
the spot where I hope to be interred, I made no farther observa- 
tions. When an inherited prejudice of many years' standing 
meets an acquired prejudice of similar age the result of such 
meeting cannot be otherwise than disastrous to peaceful medi- 
tations. 

I like the restfulness of a country church yard. I share 
the feelings of Samuel Rogers, 

" When by a good man's grave 1 muse alone, 
Methinks an angel sits upon the stone, 
And in a voice inspiring joy not fear, 
Says, pointing upward, that he is not here." 

Yet how hard it is to divest one's self of legal habits. Even here, 
wandering over these graves I find myself trying to determine 
from outward indications "which holds sinner, which holds 
saint " But how vain is the effort. The grass looks as green 
on the one as on the other, the marble rises as high over the 
grave of the sinner as over that of the saint (in many cemeteries 
a little higher, ) and no flabby-leafed plant such as Hawthorne 
saw on a New England grave unfolds itself to show the resting 
place of Mr. Badman. Perchance they be all saints that lie 
here. Let us hope so. Evidently those children yonder think 
so, for they drop their flowers indiscriminately on every grave 
they pass. The girls appear to have their aprons full of roses. 
Only a few steps back of them their little brother follows. He, 
too, has roses— a chubby handfull — that he quickly drops to chase 
a butterfly. From grave to grave it flits, he after it— now stumb- 
ling over foot-stones— now slipping on the graves. He has it- 
no ! his hand just missed it, there, it flits beyond him, beyond the 
cemetery wall. Pick up thy flowers, boy, the butterfly hath es- 
caped thee, all that thou canst hope to find here now is its cocoon. 
To the antiquarian, St. Mark's has little to present. Such a 
visitor will not find here any "quaint or curious headstones with 

[ 40 




Barney Unangst. 



skulls and crossbones and old time epitaphs engraved thereon." 
For these, he must seek the churchyard of St. John's in the 
neighboring township of West Cain. St. Mark's was but an in- 
fant when St. John's was hoary with its hundred years. The 
organization of St. Mark's dates back to 1835, about the same 
age as Holy Trinity — a few years older than St. Peter's in 
Phoenixville, a few years younger that St. Paul's in West 
Whiteland. 

The parish of St. Mark's is not a large one, nor are her com- 
municants numerous, but her roll embraces not a few sin- 
cere and unaffected woi-shippers. Many of her present mem- 
bers are lineal descendants of former parishioners, whose bodies 
lie within her churchyard walls. I walk among these graves 
with slow and reverend step, for some of them contain the dust 
of very worthy men — men who believed in the dignity of labor 
and the providence of God — men who perceiving the true end of 
life sought to build character rather than houses, and having at- 
tained their ends and expectations, found, with Bacon, that " the 
sweetest canticle is Jfunc dimittis." 

At the turn of the road beyond St. Mark's I saw an old man 
standing behind a row of boxwood that stretched itself across a 
little yard, and rose waist high in front of him. Hatless and 
collarless, with wan face and long white hair that half concealed 
his meagre neck, he looked like a connecting link between the 
centuries ; indeed I fancied that I saw a relic of the early settle- 
ments. 

" Can this be Barney Unangst, the oldest man in the neigh- 
borhood?" I inquired. 

"All that is left of him," he said, "and you?" 

" A strolling lawyer from the county seat who wished to see 
the cemetery of St. Mark's," I answered. 

" You knew the rector, who is dead ?" he asked, then added 
with solemnity, "God rest his soul, I miss him." 

41 ] 



" His name was — " 

"Arnold," he replied, "a godly man who knew his people 
everywhere he met them." 

" And this was Arnold's church," said I. " I knew him — 
knew him well." A man of quiet tastes was Francis Arnold, a 
clergyman devout and scholarly, who fed his soul upon the 
ancient prophecies and loved a Greek root better than a juicy 
steak. " Yes, I knew Arnold, and have heard him speak of Bar- 
ney Unangst. I trust the world deals kindly with you now that 
he is gone ?" 

Barney dropped his head and for a moment gave no answer, 
then, slowly raising it, replied : " Alas ! Alas ! I have worked too 
hard, and have worked too long." There was pathos in his 
answer, there was pathos in his voice, such pathos that I ceased 
my conversation and turned again toward Cupola. Poor Barney ! 
Toil had indeed shriveled him, his clothes hung loosely over his 
shrunken limbs, and his palsied arm accentuated the melancholy 
truth, "worked too hard and worked too long." 




[42 



6 
2 

O 
H 

O 

w 

w 
o 



m 



►13 

OQ 




CUPOLA DAM. 



' When breezes are soft and skies are fair, 
I steal an hour from study and care, 
And hie me away to the woodland scene. 
Where wanders the stream with waters of green." 

Bryant — Green River. 




vf.SN, 







HE dam at Cupola is a favorite place for 
Reading fishermen. They ship their 
tents on the cars, get them at the sta- 
tion, carry them across the bridge and 
set them up in the meadow on the north 
side of the dam, near the ruins of an 
old clover mill. Many a tired workman 
has found relief from a noisy Fourth of July in the country 
about Cupola. Besides her quietude Cupola has little else to 
offer those who visit her— a grist mill, with a blacksmith shop 
behind it, an unattractive iron bridge and a corner store— these, 
and a couple of houses, are all the improvements she can show, 
and yet, there was a time when brawny workmen lined this road 
and clouds of smoke proclaimed to all the country-side, 
"Rebecca Furnace is located here." 

The builders of this furnace chose a bad location, charcoal 
became scarce, farmers refused to sell their wood, the furnace 

43] 



could only run at a loss, and was consequently abandoned. To-day 
the traveller who stops to rest his horse at Cupola, will look in 
vain for surface indications of the furnace site, and yet along 
the roadside, not a furlong from the hitching post that stands in 
front of Grouse's store, if curious inclined, he still may find 
beneath a pile of stones, some battered pieces of a once used 
hearth. 

Off yonder, in one of the fields of the old mill tract, that 
lies to the north of the public road, they used to say that Father 
Time himself was wont to rest. All doubting visitors who asked 
for confirmation of this strange report were pointed to a 
rock, marked with the letter "T." To those who failed to 
recognize the autograph as Time's, and asked for further proof, 
why— further proof was given in fragments of an hour glass, 
and splinters from a scythe. A hunter found Time sleeping 
there and foolishly discharged his gun to waken him, whereat 
the old man, in his hurry to escape, broke both his hour glass and 
scythe,— so ran the story. That Time did formerly delight to 
linger here can be established by the strongest evidentiary facts, 
for, "buried in the graveyard at the Manor, there are (so says 
McClune, ) more persons who spent all their lives in this valley, 
whose ages varied from seventy-five to ninety-five years, than in 
any other burial ground in Chester county." 

Prosaic lawyers like myself, must grant that "T" might 
stand for Time, but in this section of the country, it might ap- 
propriately stand as well for either thorns or thistles. Yet, as 
freeholders of the soil are not at all times scrupulously careful 
to mark or indicate the undesirable products of their properties, 
I reasoned with myself, this letter was the work of one whose 
thoughts were turned toward posthumous remembrance, of one 
whose observations had inclined him to the pessimistic view that 
in the preservation of a family name, self-interest is a greater 
force than love. The slab of marble that records ancestral vir- 

[ 44 



tues is often suffered to decay, while monuments of title are 
carefully preserved. A letter such as this declares to legal 
minds : " This was the land of ' T '." But who was " T " ? and 
what was " T " ? " T " was a certain Joseph Trego, Jr., a faint 
reflection of Beau Brummell. An inventory of a decedent's 
estate is ordinarily a simple and uninteresting paper, but as I 
look upon the Trego inventory, it has for me the virtue of the 
" magic mirror," in accurately revealing the very personality of 
him whose goods it catalogues and values. The lusty miller who 
just now stood idly by the mill door, with arms akimbo, sleeves 
rolled up and vest all sprinkled over with meal, has slowly faded 
from my sight and in his place, behold ! an elegant and starchy 
gentleman whose dress— but how can I describe his shirt and 
waistcoat, and his irreproachable black velvet breeches, sparkling 
with silver buckles. The white stock that enfolds his neck 
is not so high as that on which Beau Brummell used to rest 
his chin and crease down to the proper level, but yet quite high 
enough to give distinction to his person. In some particulars my 
Brandywine beau is unlike Brummell, for Brummell always used 
gold buckles on white stocks, while Trego's taste inclines him to 
the use of silver. But should my readers value him the less on 
this account, I pray them to remember that Brummell lived in 
London, Trego in Nantmeal, and by that fact alone, he labored 
under serious disadvantages, for Nantmeal had no portrait 
painters to design cravats, nor was champagne so common that 
it might be used in polishing one's shoes. Superior gloss must 
be conceded to the London gallant, and yet, unless my fancy 
grossly errs, when Trego decked himself in his new buckskin 
breeches, with pistol and tomahawk by his side, and fancy fowl- 
ing piece across his shoulder, he looked as glorious as Brummell 
ever did in riding coat and white-topped boots, or even as cornet 
of the 10th Hussars. Trego at least was not at any time re- 
duced to one mean pair of trousers, for at his death, he left as 

45 ] 



legacies a great variety of coats and breeches and shirts and 
linings. On his "loving father," he bestowed his "greatcoat" 
and "black velvet breeches ;" to his loving father-in-law, he gave 
his newest "buckskin breeches ;" to his brother, his "brown coat 
and white coat;" also his "white jacket," "yellow jacket and 
breeches; " while his silver stock buckle, knee buckles, sleeve but- 
tons and brooches, silver watch, fowling piece, pewter ware, 
earthen ware and china, passed into the maw of the residuary 
legatees. 













[ 46 







15 



O 



IN THE STREAM. 



" I cry for the water brooks, and pant for fresh streams and 
inland murmurs." 

Charles Lamb— The Last Essays of Rlia. 








ROM Cupola to Lewis's Mills by the 
public road is about a mile— the dis- 
tance by the railroad being somewhat 
shorter. Between them lies the Brandy- 
wine. For a quarter of a mile or more 
it flows close to the road, then suddenly 
"^S^' turns toward the south and disappears. 

One day, when standing at this bend looking at the colors that 
Autumn had sprinkled over the weeds and wild flowers that grew 
between the road and the edge of the water, I caught a glimpse 
of something white behind the purplish clusters of an unknown 
plant. Pressing forward to look at it more closely, I soon dis- 
covered it was the shirt of a little boy who was sitting on an old 
log, fishing. His whole outfit was not worth a penny, but I 
would willingly have given him the contents of a poor practi- 
tioner's pocket to have shared the contentment that shone in his 
face. A small branch— a bit of string — a bent pin— a quiet 
stream — a blue sky — made up his earthly Paradise. " Perhaps," 
as George Eliot observes in 'The Mill on the Floss'— "the 
fretted summer shade and stillness and the gentle breathing of 
some loved life near would be Paradise for us all, if eager 

47] 



thought, the strong angel with the implacable brow, had not long 
since closed the gates. 

Behind the trees that cast their shadows over the child was 
a gypsy encampment, whose most valuable possessions seemed 
to consist of a canvass tent, a house on wheels, with snow white 
beds all ready for occupancy, and a pair of slick and well con- 
ditioned horses. These in themselves were sufficient indications 




that the owners were either thrifty or crafty— possibly both. The 
men of the camp had gone out to trade, but the mistress was 
there in front of the tent, resting hei'self on an empty box. 
For fifty yeai"S (according to her story) she had travelled over 
the country ; now she was headed for the city, for I " feel," said 
she, " as if my days are almost done." Fifty years by the way- 

[ 48 



side ! What experiences were hers. Sleeping under trees, by- 
unknown waters, " seeing the dawn and the sunset every day, 
above a new horizon." Before this house on wheels was built 
how comfortless her bed ! how wretched her condition ! Not 
wholly comfortless, however, nor unconditionally wretched, 
were I to judge the case by Don Quixote's views on poverty. 
Is the gypsy's bed too narrow " it is his own fault, for he 
may measure out as many feet of earth as he pleases, and 
roll himself thereon at pleasure, without fear of rumpling the 
sheets." But a stonn was coming on, besides " it is an evil age 
for the gypsily inclined among men. He who sit squai'e on a 
three-legged stool," says Stevenson, " he it is who has wealth and 
glory." With these reflections in my mind, I felt like hastening 
on, lest I, too, should acquire a taste for travel and lose my relish 
for Blackstone and Coke. Before leaving, I asked the grand- 
daughters to stand for their pictures. One of them— the home- 
lier of the two— promptly complied, but the other, a typical 
gypsy with beads and bracelets, flung herself upon a roll of 
blankets just inside the tent, and (much to my regret), re- 
fused to be identified with the Brandywine. 

The bridge at Lewis's Mills is a new and substantial sti-uc- 
ture that has successfully stood the double tests of floods and 
broken dams. As I stand for a minute on the central arch of 
this bridge and look down on the stream below, it seems to me 
as if its waters, after resting for a little while in the dam, 
actually rejoice in finding their freedom once again, and flow 
with a livelier current. Do you doubt it ? Look at those little 
breakers chasing each other as they go rushing on to Wyebrooke. 

This part of the Brandywine is one of the homes of the 
small mouthed black bass. What rare sport this fish has fur- 
nished the anglers of the Brandywine. Bass— small mouthed 
black bass— the very thought of thee is more exhilarating than 
a fee! Did you ever dally with this thought a little? Try it, 

49 ] 



and you will find yourself not metaphorically, but actually in 
the current. Lured by the picture of a possible catch, I have 
seen hard headed lawyers lay down their briefs, careful justices 
forget their fees, calculating merchants drop their account books, 
and even reverend ministers leave off the preparation of their 
sermons before secondly was reached. 

What lover of streams— what follower— what reader of 
Isaak Walton can deny the attractive power of bass? An indif- 
ferent fisherman myself, I have often sought them in their 
favorite haunts, but rarely, very rarely, found them home. 

I love this spot, for my first experience was here. These 
self-same trees which over-arch this stream to-day, revivify for 
me a spent sensation. Again I find myself pushing "Bi-ightly" 
aside and reading the reports of the Fish Commissioners of 
Pennsylvania on the liabits and peculiarities of small mouthed 
black bass. Confidently relying upon the accurate knowledge 
thus obtained, of short rods and plain floaters, gut leaders and 
Limerick hooks, an accomplished theoretical fisherman starts out 
with a borrowed line and the spirit of Don Quixote, headed for 
Wyebrooke. 

For the uninitiated let me say, that there are many theories 
for catching bass— all set forth in well bound books upon the 
subject— which theories are somewhat hard to reconcile. One 
authority declares the only way is to set your rod and wait for 
the bass to come along and take the bait. There is much that 
recommends this theory to legal minds, but another writer as- 
serts that if you would catch bass, and not merely fish for them, 
you must hunt them as a gunner hunts rabbits. Now the latter 
theory having the support of the well known maxim, " He suc- 
ceeds best who is constantly on the search," seemed to deserve 
my adoption, so I adopted it. Of course such sayings as " Fish 
in the edge of the eddies ;" and " Give the bass time enough to 
gorge the bait," were trite and needed no debating. The serious 

[50 






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K 
^ 



»T3 







question of bait or flies I had already determined. At first I 
inclined toward flies, but what flies? Toodle Bug, Shipley's 
Jewel, Lord Baltimore, or Silver Doctor ? Toodle Bug sounded 
too common for a five pound Brandywine small mouthed black 
bass, and between the other noble names I could not discriminate. 
Besides, fly fishing while more exciting is less honorable than 
the vulgar way of bait. Dr. Prime had decided that for me 
years ago. " In both cases you deceive the fish, but with the 
fly you mock him with the semblance of the insect, and he 
jumps for it and is caught with a bare hook ; in the latter he 
takes the veritable food he needs and dies at his dinner." I 
therefore determined on worms. These questions and similar 
ones all solved, the train stopped — I reached the spot— waded in 
and threw. It was a nice hook, of the largest size and well 
barbed, but had a strange affinity for trees. An overhanging 
branch and it came to an agreement at once. I separated them 
with much trouble and threw again — this time with care. I 
pulled out my watch to see if I had struck their feeding time, 
when whiz ! out went my line. Can it be possible, thought 
I, that by some mistake a bass has seized my bait at last? 
For the first time I experienced that strange thrill, that 
electric sensation, that a bass on your line transmits to the 
pole in your hand, and through the pole to you. " I'll wind him 
up a little and get a look at his mouth," I said. It is a bass and 
a big one, but the stone I stand on is a slippery one. What if 
the bass should strike my leg? There — I really think I felt his 
tail. Seriously, this creek seems too narrow for the manoeuvres 
of such a fish. He must have gorged himself enough by this 
time. True, the worm was a big one, still, if I remember 
rightly, the text books say, when worms are bait, gorging is un- 
necessary. I will land him — I mean I would land him if I had 
a net. Why didn't I consider the possibility of hooking this 
kind of fish. Ev^en an old fashioned scoop net would do, or a 

SI ] 



store box, or a big shovel. Not a thing in sight ; I'll wind up the 
line and catch him with my hands. " Click, click " — it was a 
slippery stone I stood on. I thought so once, I know it now. I 
grab at something as I slip, and find when I rise that I have 
gripped a bass — a black bass — small mouthed and alas, small 
bodied — by actual measurement just seven inches. 

Do bass shrink as the result of strenuous effort ? My ex- 
perience is not sufficient to enable me to answer this affirma- 
tively, but I know they lengthen rapidly when once they are 
caught. Bass that measure only a foot at the creek side in 
the afternoon often grow to twenty inches by evening. The 
length of a bass, a score at golf and an accomplice's testimony, 
have much in common. 







-n' 






'••»S 'W', .'V, .'ill!'"'-' ■, ■ "■ ' 'If'. ' ' ■ 



LEWIS'S MILL. 



[ 52 




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WYEBROOKE. 




"What is this castle call'd, that stands hard by?" 

"They call it— AgiiicoLirt." 

Shakespeare— Henry V. 

EST Nantmeal is the only township in the 
county that can boast a palace fit for a 
king. Located on the highest hill of 
Wyebrooke, it can be seen for many a 
mile. Seen for the first time from a 
distance, it looks like fancy's creation, 
such a palace as one might behold in 
his dreams after reading the story of Alladin, such as a roc 
might drop in passing, or a genie summon from the bowels of 
the earth. A little nearer, it presents the aiipearan.ee of a great 
institution built according to architectural rules which have not 
for their chief object the elimination of the beautiful. Close 
at hand, you inquire and learn from a resident of the township 
that it is the home of William M. Potts. 

Wyebrooke is a picturesque spot, perhaps the most pictur- 
esque spot on the Eastern Brandywine. No reader of Victor 
Hugo can visit it without involuntarily thinking of the novelist's 
curious reflections on the letter Y. " Have you ever noticed," 
writes he, in a letter to his wife, on the road to Aix-Les-Bains, 
" what a picturesque letter Y is with its numberless significa- 
tions?" 

53 ] 



" A tree is a Y ; the parting of two roads is a Y ; the conflu- 
ence of two rivers is a Y ; an ass's or ox's head is a Y ; a glass 
as its stands on its foot is a Y ; a lily on its stem is a Y ; a suppli- 
ant raising its hand to heaven is a Y." Hugo would make the 
alphabet contain trees, rivers, roads, destiny and God. Most of 
us will not follow him so far ; many of us will even disagree 
with him in some of his statements relative to certain letters, 
but the most careless visitor to Wyebrooke can not fail to ob- 
serve that the Y's of this place contribute much to its pictur- 
esqueness. It has Y's " pushed into a sensitive excess ; " Y's 
which do unconsciously affect the spectator. What would it be 
without the parting of the roads beyond the bridge, without the 
siding running off to the deserted fulling mill, without the 
junction of Perkin's Run with the Brandy wine? There is wild- 
ness here, and beauty,— beauty touched with sadness, as one looks 
at Isabella Furnace. " Where is it ?" you ask. Walk down this 
eastern hillside and you will find it near the base. You hesitate? 
You fear to interrupt the workmen? There are no workmen 
now,— the fires are out, the place is tenantless. A stream, called 
Perkin's Run, divides the plant unequally, but pathologically. 
Upon the western side, between the edge of the run and the 
charcoal houses— all bright and clean in their galvanized coats— 
the case is one of temporarily suspended animation, of deep un- 
consciousness, that even yet might be brought back to life ; but 
on the eastern side, decay is hopeless. See ! there in front of 
you it lies— a few dismantled buildings— broken roofs and smoke- 
less stacks— some ore, old iron and timber. A melancholy spot ; 
a roost for owls ; a resting place for wandering beggars ; and 
yet at times a dangerous resting place. One night a mis- 
chievous old owl returning to his roost, observed some bold 
intruders lying here and lustily let out his screech full in their 
ears. It sounded like a whistle's call to work. Upstarting 
from their sleep, the shadows of these great black stacks seemed 

[ 54 




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to their drowsy eyes like confirmations of the awful thought. 
For just a moment (as they afterwards confessed) they felt the 
pulse beat of a laborer's life, and then ran rapidly away. The 
shoes they left behind them in their flight, still lie beneath that 
mass of weeds and tangled grass which marks the course of the 
old railroad track up which they fled, and some maintain, the owl 
may even yet be seen at midnight on his ancient perch, keeping 
a careful watch for all intruders. 

Were I a local historian, I might profltably divide this af- 
ternoon between walking up Perkin's Run beyond the forge 
dam, to Lewis's Little Mill, and searching for a reservation 
known as Jenkins' Acre. Were I a botanist, these tangled 
vines and flowers and shrubs that meet my eyes, no matter 
where I look, would hold me equally as long, and furnish equal 
entertainment. Were I a mineralogist, congenial occupation 
could be found in speculating on the richness of some specimens 
of ore, picked up at random, at Wood's Ore Bank. But being 
none of these, and having passed the morning here, I wait just 
long enough to sketch a group of laughing girls upon the bridge 
over Perkin's Run, and travel on toward Barneston. 

About a mile from Barneston, on the south side of the 
Brandywine road leading to Glen Moore, a little west of an 
hydraulic cider mill, stands a wide mouthed, big throated old 
stone chimney to which a frame house has recently been 
attached. Within a radius of three-quarters of a mile or 
less, three other chimneys, similarly constructed, may be 
found, some of them older, but none so large as this, which 
measures almost thirteen feet across its base. To see the fire- 
place, one must go to the cellar, for the present frame build- 
ing rests upon the ruins of a little log house with which this 
chimney was intimately associated before it formed its later, and 
to my eye, most incongruous union. Almost two centuries ago, 
the agencies of civilization began to dot the valleys of Nantmeal 

55 ] 



with little log houses. Their construction needed neither archi- 
tect nor carpenter. Unhewn logs and short pieces of wood for 
filling, a bed of common mortar made of clay and straw, such 
were the materials out of which the settlers built them, taking 
care to set them up on rising gi'ound, near to a spring. Twenty 
by thirty was the usual size, with two doors opposite each other, 
and an added chimney. 

After the Peace of 1763, McClune says, " these log houses 
were largely replaced by houses with the east end, which ex- 
perience had taught them was most liable to decay, occupied by a 
chimney which extended the entire length of the house. In one 
corner of this capacious chimney a small window was placed, by 
the light of which the female members of the household plied 
the spinning wheel. The other corner of the chimney served as 
a convenient place for storing the juvenile portion of the family 
in the winter evenings." 

How interesting it would be to know the history of this old 
chimney. What children crowded its corners to warm them- 
selves by the crackling logs? Wliat fair Olivia spun the flax, 
and when the reel was wound, looked down upon the glowing em- 
bei-s near her feet and sought to read her future in them? 
Right hospitable must its fires have seemed to some tired father 
returning from the wearisome task of opening roads and bridging- 
swamps. To smell the fragrant cedar on the hearth, to listen 
to the sputtering of the great green logs, was comfort and com- 
panionship. Ah, if thou couldst but speak, old chimney, thou 
wouldst more fittingly express the thoughts that flit across my 
mind ; wouldst touch them with a glow of fire, and with what 
willingness would I repeat thy words; for when I fain would 
draw a picture, this rough indicting pen of mine does naught 
but stick and spatter. 

In 1777, Nantmeal's assessor returned that not a piece of 
silver plate could be found in any house of the township. 

[ 56 



Nantmeal is richer now ; but I sometimes wonder as I stand by 
the ruins of one of these old chimneys, whether a portion of her 
riches might not be profitably exchanged for the vanished fancies 
of the fire-light. On the summit of St. Bernard, Read wrote 
what many a settler's family had often felt : 

" Oh, it is a joy to gaze 
Where the great logs lie ablaze ; 
Thus to list the garrulous flame 
iVluttering like some ancient dame ; 
And to hear the sap recount 
Stories of its ancient mount." 

And stories these old Nantmeal logs could tell. Not the com- 
monplace stories that we hear from the little billets of wood 
that blaze for a few moments in our open hearths to-day ; but in- 
spiring stories of Indian heroism, weird stories of Indian treach- 
ery, stories of vengeance, of battle, of blood ; for in southern 
Nantmeal was the site of Indiantown, and \vinding to the 
westward of yon hill beyond the Brandywine, the Northern 
Branch of Indian Run still seeks the shadows of the woods. 



57 ] 



SPRINGTON MANOR. 




" Be sure to remember Springtown." 

James Logan to Isaac Taylor. 

N Ugly, weather beaten trespass sign 
admonishes me the woods I am about 
to enter is forbidden ground, or was so 
years ago, for by its looks some genera- 
tions must have passed since first this 
notice raised its head to threaten trav- 
elers with the pains that follow tor- 
tious entry. 

Many a baffled hunter has expressed his rage at its fidelity 
by sprinkling it with shot, but maimed and battered it still 
holds its place, still shows its teeth, and looks more ominous 
than ever, since now the only words distinctly visible are " pen- 
alty-of-the-law." 

When first this sign confronted me, so sudden and so unex- 
pected was it, that I felt as if an agent of the great Proprie- 
tor had thrust himself across my path and challenged me to show 
my right of way ; as if some officer of John Taylor's time had 
halted me and searchingly inquired if I were ignorant that the 
land that lay about me was embraced within the boundai'ies of 
Springton Manor. 

[ 58 



" The unfortunate Manor of Springtown," as James Logan 
called it, gave the Proprietor much trouble. Two fruitless efforts 
were made to lay it out, one in West Bradford, the other on 
a branch of Pickering Creek ; finally the judgment of Logan 
settled on this tract of ten thousand acres as "the only spott 
left " in the county of Chester to answer the holding expressed 
in nearly every patent of land granted in it. 

It was a seat worthy of the " Lord of the Fee." Like the plain 
of Jordan chosen by Lot, Springton was well watered everywhere. 
The Black Brandywine flowed through its southeastern corner, 
the Western Brandywine through its southwestern corner, while 
the Eastern Brandywine and the two branches of Indian Run 
plentifully supplied its interior. On the south a vacant barren 
mountain looked down upon the junction of Indian Run and 
the Eastern Brandywine. Up this mountain, along these streams 
frequented by Indians, John Taylor went surveying and marking, 
until at last on March 18-1729-30, he entered in his memoran- 
dum book, 

" finished Springton manor." 

But Taylor was mistaken ; Springton was not finished. Lines 
were to be adjusted, and the whole was to be divided into tracts 
of two hundred acres, "that being the quantity His Honor 
would have all the plantations on the manor to consist of, ex- 
cept where ye mill stands and there is to be at least seven hun- 
dred acres laid out ;" and all this he was to do without regard 
to any improvements that had been made within the bounds of 
the Manor. 

In making these divisions some delays occurred, which 
caused no little irritation; the tasks were irksome and tres- 
passers were numerous, so numerous, that Taylor was directed 
to " charge the several persons who had settled on the manor 
land without a license for so doing, that they must speedily re- 
move from thence, or else be prosecuted as the law directs." 

59] 



Day by day the impatience of the Proprietor increased. 
" Our proprietor has frequently asked me," writes James Steel, 
"if the manor of Springton was yet divided and the vacant 
lands in that neighborhood— Coventry and Nantmell— viewed 
and described as was desired to be done by thee." 

Some spirited correspondence followed this note ; requests 
became demands, and demands such as Taylor thought un- 
reasonable. Coming home from the woods one night, in May of 
1740, he found a letter there requiring him to bring in one 
week's time a draught of Springton Manor with its various di- 
visions, and also draughts of all the other vacant lands in Cov- 
entry and Nantmeal. 

The last part of the demand, as Taylor viewed it, was more 
than any one surveyor could comply with in a full month's time, 
and ten times as much as had ever before been given him in 
charge, so snatching up his pen he wrote— 

" The danger of your displeasure in case of failure in any 
part as signified in James Steels letter instead of hurrying me 
on so vast a Task, has given me an entire discharge from all 
Drudgery of the kind, and I have no more to do than to wish 
you a better surveyor than one who is notorious to have done 
more for your interest, when your affairs seemed to call for the 
strictest assiduity, than any surveyor now living and I can wish 
your honor no greater felicity than to be as well pleased and 
easy as I am." 



[ 60 



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GLEN MOORE. 




" Tho' I to foreign lands must hie, 
Pursuing Fortune's slidd'ry ba', 
Willi melting heart, and brimful eye, 
I'll mind you still, the' far awa'." 

Bums — The Farewell. 

N 1811, a petition was presented to the 
Court of Chester County alleging great 
inconvenience for the want of a bridge 
across the Brandy-wine Creek at George 
Evans's Mill, " said creek at that place 
being confined within a narrow and 
very rocky channel, frequently rising 
to enormous heights, which, added to the rapidity of the current, 
defies the efforts of the boldest travellers, as well as the most 
venturesome neighbors, entirely cutting off all communication 
between the east and west banks thereof." The writer of this 
petition was no ordinary scrivener, nor legal pedant, nor techni- 
cal adherent to old and outworn forms. A part of the descrip- 
tion reads strangely like a page from Scott's "Fair Maid of 
Perth"— apart of it resembles Fouque's sketch of the swollen 
river in " Undine." The rocks and the rushing stream are here, 
and it requires little fancy to hear the pine stems falling, and 
mark the tall man in white, grinning and nodding on the opposite 
shore. Near the mill, stand the petitioners, fearful for Un- 

6i] 




dine, but lacking in courage, anxiously waiting for the daunt- 
less Hulbrand to come and cross the whirling current. We see 
all this and more to-day; the viewers saw it a half century 
ago, the grand jury also, but the prosaic Court saw nothing of 
it, they saw only an omission on the part of the viewers to re- 
port that the expense of erecting the bridge was too great for 
the township to bear, and rejected the petition. 

In 1848, George Evans's mill became the property of James 
Moore, and the Village of Glen Moore sprang up. A passenger 
traveling northward on the Waynesburg railroad who cares to 

view a point in the course of the 
*--2^~-~-.Lf^'j^;,':^7r^ -^' Brandy wine where its waters once de- 
fied the efforts of the boldest travelers 



to cross them, has but to look out of 
the car window when the conductor 
calls " Glen Moore," and keep his eyes 
upon the stream until the train passes 
the upper end of the village. 

In 1852, "West Nantmeal was divided and a new township 
was formed, including nearly the same territory as the old 
manor of Springton, from which it first received its name. A 
year later the legislature changed it to Wallace, pleasing many 
of the inhabitants of that part of the country and dissatisfying 
a few. Among the latter was Dr. Benjamin Griffith, who sneer- 
ingly observed on one occasion (referred to by Judge Futhey) : 
"Wallace, called, I suppose, after an old Scotchman who used to 
own Mormon Hollow." 

Between Springton and Wallace, Doctor, why not Wallace? 
Apply the Shakespearean test, 

" Write them together, it is as fair a name; 
Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well ; 
Weigh them, it is as heavy ; conjure with them, 
Wallace will start a spirit as soon as Springton." 

[62 













z. 

O 



The settlers of Springton were almost entirelj^ of Scotch 
Irish stock— descendants of Mackelduff, Alexander, Hender- 
son, Starrett and Mackey. How unreasonable to ask their off- 
spring to subordinate Wallace to Springton. Patriotism boasts 
no nobler name than Wallace. Very properly did they decline 
to yield to English or Welsh suggestions. England had no claim 
on this portion of Chester County and Wales had already con- 
tributed enough of unpronounceable names. Just across the 
Brandywine lay a township— with a name that doubtless met with 
Dr. Griffith's hearty approval— that even then (to say nothing 
of the years that have since elapsed ) had broken more pens and 
caused more breaches of the Fourth Commandment than all the 
other townships in the county, with perhaps the solitary excep- 
tion of Tredyffrin. 

The village of Glen Moore is located on the western side of 
the Brandy\vine, and contains about fifty dwelling houses, three 
stores, two coal yards, a post office and a politician. Ordinarily it 
is a quiet, domestic, little place, but every year— on each recurring 
Fourth of July— it bestirs itself and publicly and patriotically 
welcomes its friends. The fii-st time that I became acquainted 
with this custom I had come from Indian Run and was standing on 
the top of a hill looking at the country as it fell away to the 
Brandysvine, when suddenly I heard the sound of music, followed 
by a few sharp cracks of a whip and the ringing of sleigh bells. 
I listened for a moment and then turned sharp about. Scarcely 
had I done so when two hoi-ses, puffing and foaming, with a 
wagon load of children all in white, rounded the bend of the 
road, and passing me at a mad gallop, dashed down the hill to 
the merry tune of "Yankee Doodle." I followed them but 
slowly, for my feet were sore from the stones of the creek. 
Sitting down to rest on the bank of the road, my eye was caught 
by a flaming advertisement, advising everybody that twelve " Co- 
lonial Dames" and forty-five "Beautiful Maidens" were ex- 

63] 



pected to visit Glen Moore that evening at eight o'clock. I 
read it again, looked at my watch, and started at a quickstep, 
caring nothing for the trivial matter of supper, anxious only to 
reach the thoroughfare along which the matrons and maidens 
were announced to pass. 

It is a good natured crowd that lines the roadside from By- 
erly's corner to Wagonseller's house— a crowd made up of farm- 
ers and their families, from Wallace, and the neighboring 
townships of West Nantmeal, West Brandywine and the 
Uwchlans. Jollily do they jostle each other in their efforts to 
make room for some young men from Honeybrook, who have 
driven ten miles to exhibit their first buggies and best girls. 
Here they come — every horse with a rosette, every girl with a 
ribbon, every whip with a bow. Open up a passage! Make 
room for these gallants and room for the little boy with the 
jaunty red cap and blue pantaloons, who tries to catch each rib- 
bon that floats from the passing vehicles. Room for old 'Squire 
Dampman, too -whom the lawyers call " Pickwick," fond of an 
argument, but fonder yet of a line fence and a law suit. How I 
like to see him laugh. I hold with Robertson, "that man is a 
bad man who has not within him the power of a hearty laugh." 
The 'Squire's laughter starts at the very foundations, moves his 
feet, agitates his knees, shakes his stomach and then comes bub- 
bling out of his mouth. Room, I say, for such a man, if every 
one else has to fall back. But why this delay ? Are the maidens 
or the matrons responsible ? Unless they hurry it will soon be 
dark. Possibly they look better in— no ! the thought is treasona- 
ble, I'll not complete it. At last they come. Too late ! I cannot 
now distinguish dames from maidens. Up the road they go, up 
toward Wagonseller's Park. The parade is over, the festival is 
beginning. 



[64 




^S,.w,..^-<-"'" _■;.. 



Squire Dampman. 



INDIAN RUN. 



" The Dark-eye has left us, 
The Spring-bird has flown, 
On the pathway of spirits 
She wanders alone. 
The song of the wood-dove has died on our shore, 
Mai wonck kunna-monee ! we hear it no more ! " 

Whiltief — Song of Indian Women. 








NE afternoon in early summer while 
walking along the public road by Spring- 
ton Dam, I noticed on an island near its 
centre, a little white heron that stayed 
just long enough to let me catch it with 
my camera, and then, away it flew up 
Indian Run. So soft and white did the 
little heron look, and so swift was its 
flight that I could almost pardon old Pythagoras for his theory 
of transmigration — could almost believe myself that this light- 
winged bird that skimmed the surface of the dam so gracefully, 
was but the embodiment of some fair Indian maiden's spirit, re- 
visiting the scenes of happy childhood, in a former life, by the 
quiet waters of Indian Run. 

Silently does this stream make its contribution to Springton 
Dam — silently, almost invisibly. Invisibly? Yes! A stranger 
might sit on one of the piers of the railroad bridge, just oppo- 

6s ] 




site the point where Indian Run discharges its waters without 
observing the slightest break in the western line of the dam, so 
numerous are the bushes, so thick is their foliage. Above the 
iron bridge on the public road 
leading to Springton Station, In- 
dian Run looks wider, and in 
some places really is wider than 
below. Here and there, big bould- 
ers divide the stream and little 
stones have been thrown in be- 
side them ; sometimes purposely 
to dam the water, or divert the 
current, sometimes with no other 
object than to break the silence that pervades the place. Near 
a large rock, where I always stop to muse awhile, a kindly-tem- 
pered farmer has flung a bridge across for loiterers like myself. 
Judging from the numerous bits of Chinese napkins that I see 
about me on the ground, some picknickers have used it lately, 
but this afternoon absolute silence rules. For me the sound of 
merry voices here would be most inharmonious, would seem like 
profanation. The feeling that the place inspires is one of sad- 
ness. Mournfulness is born of the spot, or else of the reflection 
that this retreat was not originally made for me — God made 
it for the Indian, and I stand here — 

" upon his ashes . . . 
Beside a stream he loved." 

A half mile further up, near the blacksmith shop of James 
Myers, the North and South Branches of Indian Run meet. By 
taking the South Branch, you will find yourself moving toward 
Brandywine Manor, and later discover that you are circling 
through bushes and swamps to Cupola. The North Branch, on 
the other hand, will lead you into the heart of a great wood, 
solitary and lonesome, where there are no I'oads and where the 

[ 66 



o 

w 

a 



w 

o 

w 



O 



ft 




few remains of wagon tracks are covered up with weeds. So 
often have I wandered through this wood, I know each mossy- 
rock, each bank of ferns, each quiet pool. The giant grape- 
vines that entwine themselves about the trees and creep far up 
into the branches, or twist themselves in curious convolutions on 
the ground, even these have lost their serpentine appearance 
and become familiar. And yet at times both rocks and vines 
seem most unfriendly ; the former set their slippery traps for 
me, and when I leave the stream, the grapevines catch me in 
their coils and fling me down upon the stones and rotten leaves. 

One afternoon late in the summer, as I sat on a fallen 
tree that formed a kind of rustic bridge across the run, and 
watched a spider adjusting its net, I heard a weird and mournful 
sound and then a piercing cry— like the wail of a lost soul. A 
madman or wild cat? Which? At once the wood took on a 
lonelier look, the very foliage appearing thicker, darker, gloomier. 
Another cry— and stumbling over rocks and vines, I started for 
what seemed an open space and found myself close by an In- 
dian Burial Ground. 

The chestnut tree that marks the spot is old, perhaps two 
centuries old, and measures more than twenty feet around its 
base. In winter time it looks like some gigantic sentinel, in sum- 
mer, it becomes a green memorial, where flickers lodge, and 
squirrels play. Of all the life about me it alone beheld the 
white man come and saw the Indians go. To-day decay is slowly 
creeping over it, and some of its branches will never green 
again. Decaying? Yes! dying, but dying with dignity, un- 
moved by storms, defying the lightning, its great trunk guard- 
ing well the bones of the Delawares who sleep beneath its 
roots. 

" O peeled, and hunted, and reviled. 
Sleep on, dark tenant of the wild ! 
Great Nature owns her simple child ! " 

67 ] 



Between this Burial Ground and the present Village of Glen 
Moore, Indiantown was located near two great springs. This 
was the town to which Checochinican referred when he com- 
plained to the Governor that a survey had been made to James 
Gibbins, of "the Town at the Head of Brandywine," despite 
James Logan's promise to the Indians that no person should 
have a conveyance of lands within their claim. To the east of 
town lay the Valley of the Brandywine, to the west, the Valley 
of Indian Run. Northwardly the wood stretched out to the 
mountains. The streams supplied the Indians with abundance 
of fish, the woods with game, but they were not dependent for 
sustenance wholly upon either fishing or hunting. When Daniel 
and Alexander Henderson settled in this end of Nantmel they 
discovered that the natives had partially abandoned their no- 
madic habits, were raising a little corn and tobacco, and even 
planting a few fruit trees. 

The Burial Ground, about two or three bow-shots west of the 
town, comprises less than half an acre. When the Hendersons 
purchased it in 1737, they solemnly promised that the Indian 
graves should not be disturbed. This promise they faithfully 
kept and it has never been broken by their descendants. The 
Burial Ground still holds its secrets, and when I saw it last the 
waving corn was covering these graves with a wealth of green, 
and the venerable Chestnut tree was spreading out its branches 
as if in benediction. 



[68 




As IF IN BenedictiOiN." Page 68. 



LYNDELL AND THE PAXTANG ROAD. 




"Nothing makes an inroad without making a road." 

— Horace Btishnell. 

YNDELL is a station on the Waynesburg 
Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad, 
where the farmers of East Brandywine 
and Upper Uwchlan deliver milk, and 
where Mr. Murphy takes the train. Mr. 
Murphy is an oil millionaire who lives 
over the hill at Milford Mills. Mr. Mur- 
phy's advent at the station in the morning always makes a 
rattling among the milk cans, for milk is a common commodity 
in these fat pasture lands, while Murphy millionaires are scarce. 
This morning the train for Downingtowm is on time ; so is 
the milk, and so is Mr. Murphy. A minute later, the brakeman 
signals "all right," Mr. Murphy and the milk go to Philadelphia, 
the farmers' wagons rumble over Lyndell bridge, and I am left 
alone. 

Before Mr. Murphy came to Upper Uwchlan— before the 

Waynesburg Branch was built— before the oldest of the farmers 

who have just left me was born— yes, a hundred years before— 

a Provincial road skirted the south of Springton Manor and 

69 ] 



crossed the Brandywine very near this point. " Every road has 
its story," says Horace Bushnell, " and the burden of every story 
is a need— the greater the need, the better the road, and the 
longer and more important the story." 

You can read the story of this Provincial road— if you care 
to— in the dusty Colonial Records, but if you prefer to listen to 
a shorter version of the story, to see a portion of the road as it 
now appears, to pick a few wild strawberries along its bank, 
come with me across the bridge and get ready to climb the 
hill in front of us. 

For a quarter of a mile our road rises quickly — so quickly that 
it tests one's wind and muscle to follow it. However, upon reach- 
ing the top of the rise, it is pleasant to discover that for several 
miles at least there are no further hills to mount. From this point 
our road runs westward, close to the southern border of Wallace 
Township, and offers a view of the south side of what appears 
on the map of Springton Manor as "a vacant barren mountain." 
The so called " mountain " lies to 
our right, and looks but little 
higher than our point of view. 
On the same side of our road — 
a mile further on — we shall come 
to an abandoned school-house, 
with a date board painted 1812. 
These figures now stand out in strong relief, the wood about them 
being partly eaten out by snow and sleet and rain. Deserted 
by its patrons, with doors all broken in and shutters loosened 
from their hinges, this school-house doggedly maintains its 
ground against the wintry blasts that howl through eveiy open 
window and seek to overturn it. Its usefulness is over? No! 
its mission is but changed. It offers now the shelter of its roof 
and walls to every friendless wanderer that passes by. " Earth's 
disinherited " all doff their caps to " Locust Grove." 

[70 







CD 





Locust Grove was once the centre of an independent school 

district, and has an interesting 
history ; so has the stone chim- 
ney by the roadside a mile or so 
beyond it, but my story has to 
do with neither school-house nor 
chimney. In the good old days 
of 173G, when Patrick Gordon 
rejoiced in the title of Lieuten- 
ant Governor of the Province of 
Pensilvania, New Castle, Kent, 
and Sussex, Richard Buffington, 
-a well known farmer of Chester 
County — and ten other men, laid 
out a road about seventy miles 
in length, from Susquehannah 
River, near the house of John 
Harris, in Pextan Township, Lancaster County, to the plantation 
of Edward Kinnison, in our township of Whiteland. 

Before this road entered Whiteland, it passed through the 
townships of Nantmeal, Cain, and Uwchlan, running near the 
Presbyterian Meeting House (now Brandywine Manor), and 
crossing Brandywine Creek (the Eastern Brandywine) and one 
of its branches. 

Scarcely had the road been returned to the Council at Phila- 
delphia, when a number of objections were made to it by in- 
habitants of Whiteland, Uwchlan, and Cain. Obstinate him- 
self, urged fewer reasons for Christian's abandonment of the 
Heavenly highway, than these objectors presented for the 
rejection of this road as laid out. There were mountains to 
cross— mountains scarcely passable for carts, there were swamps 
and low grounds with spectres of insupportable charges, and 
farms cut into useless strips. Besides these weighty reasons 

71 ] 






there was the more serious allegation that a number of the view- 
ers had never so much as seen many parts of the road. 

Against such aspereions Buffington and his companions 
asked to be heard and vindicated, declaring with some little heat 
that they had chosen the most commodious places. In this dec- 
laration, they were backed by many inhabitants of " Uwchland " 
and " Nantmill," who stoutly maintained that the road was gener- 
ally convenient, and that great care had been used in selecting 
its route. 

Both parties were heard by the Provincial Council, after 
which the opponents of the road, either from their inability to 
bear the charges of a review, or having resolved upon a policy of 
delay, withdrew their objections and the road was confirmed. A 
year later when the Lancaster portion had been cleared for a dis- 
tance of fifty miles, discoveries, or pretended discoveries, were 
made that the courses, distances and marked trees in the line 
laid out in Chester County, did not fully agree with those 
given in the viewers' return. For any sui-veyor and chain- 
men to take the courses and distances of a long road through 
bushy and rough woods so that they shall exactly agree with 
the account of another surveyor with a different instrument 
and different chainmen, is a patent impossibility, but it was 
urged that the variance in the Paxtang Road was too great— in 
many places— as much as a quarter of a mile— and that the road 
crossed plantations and pieces of meadow land where it was 
never intended to be laid. 

"A gentleman of the Law" by the name of Hamilton, 
argued the case of the petitioners, after which Mr. Eastburn, 
the Surveyor General, who had measured several of the dis- 
puted courses and distances, was called to give his views. Mr. 
Eastburn admitted some small variation between the lines of 
marked trees and the courses returned by the viewers, but de- 
nied that the variation was material or greater than would hap- 

[ n 



pen between " one artist and another," allowing for the differ- 
ence of instruments and chain carriers. Having heard the " gen- 
tleman of the law " and the " artist," the Council appointed re- 
viewers, who shifted the route in western Nantmeal a little south. 
East of Brandywine Manor Church to the Eastern Brandywine, 
the change was very slight. This part of the road might be 
represented by a dipper— its handle at the church, its cup in 
the stream. Upon the return of the reviewers, in 1738, the 
former order of confirmation was amended, and the road, as re- 
turned by them, was formally declared to be the King's High- 
way. In addition, the Justices of the Peace were recommended 
to issue directions to the Overseers of the Highway, at the next 
Quarter Sessions, to open the road and render it commodious for 
public service. 

The Justices of the Peace must have ignored the recom- 
mendation of the Council, or else the Overseers of the Highways 
turned a deaf ear to their directions, for twelve years later we 
find the settlers of Lancaster county seriously complaining of 
its condition. "When we come about a mile from Nantmeal," 
they say, "we come into narrow lands about twenty foot in 
breadth, fenced on both sides and in many places incumbered 
with logs, stumps and great stones where it is very difficult to 
pass and to avoid bad or dangerous places in the road, and we 
suppose that in the distance from the County line to the Great 
Valley Hill, which may be computed to be twelve miles there is 
not five miles of the said road but is fenced about." 

A significant commentary on this complaint is furnished by 
a report of a Nantmel jury in 1745, who select " a stump in the 
Paxtang Road " for their point of beginning. Corroborated by 
such a report, we should be inclined to regard the complaint of 
these Lancastrian settlers as not altogether unreasonable, did 
not our road dockets acquaint us with more wretched conditions 
elsewhere. Twenty feet does seem like an unsatisfactory width 

73] 



for a Provincial road, and yet even with encumbrances of stumps 
and stones, the facilities for travel which such a road afforded, 
were certainly superior to those presented by many of the roads 
in the southern portion of the county a half century later. 
How slight the grievance of these Lancastrians seems when 
compared with that of Doctor Allinson, of Londongrove, who 
states to the court that " he has been repeatedly in jeopardy both 
of life and limb, — likewise his eyes and teeth have very often 
narrowly escaped being scratched and torn out — his profession 
hourly exposing him to ride by day and night, in despite of wind 
and weather along roads which are washed and torn by rains 
into gullies and deep rutts, their narrowness in many places 
prevents a person travelling on horseback from passing a team 
or passing another person riding to or from mills with a bag un- 
der him." How fervent his prayers " that the court will con- 
sider his age — that he is become so corpulent that he cannot 
bow or stoop to avoid the Limbs of Trees that hang over the 
road— his unwieldiness rendering him liable to be torn by said 
limbs of trees from his horse, and that he has several times in 
consequence thereof nearly lost both life and limb." 

The infirmities that wait on corpulency, ought to have ap- 
pealed most strongly to the conscience of the Court. 

" Those that can pity, here 
May if they think it well let fall a tear ; 
The subject will deserve it." 

I blush for Londongrove — but this is a digression — let me 
come back to the Paxtang Road. 

" Divers swamps " was one of the objections urged against it. 
The same objection had been previously made to another Pro- 
vincial road running to Nutt's Furnace ; but here again Nant- 
mel is to be congratulated, for we find the inhabitants of New 
London about the same time, protesting against the confirmation 
of a road and giving as "ye reason" that "there are fifteen 

[ 74 




Ol'K H(iAI> UlsKS CiCHKIV." l':i.!.'C 711. 



swamps that said road leads across." The climax, however, was 
reached in another township, where " at the instigation of one 
man the jury were induced to so far vary from the proper 
course that they brought the road to a prodigious swamp— 
even such a swamp that the jury themselves didn't choose to 
Run the Risque to Ride through it, but was obliged to quit their 
horses and climb along the fence to get over it." 

Imperfect as the Provincial and other public roads were by 
reason of their narrowness and incumbrances, they were de- 
cidedly preferable to the bridle paths and roads on sufferance, 
which were continually subject to alteration, so that people were 
constantly subjected to disappointment, not knowing when they 
set out in the morning by what crooked route they might be 
compelled to return at night. "New settlements," complains 
one, "renders our journeys very difficult and dangerous, by 
reason of the intricate turnings made by the new settlers." 
Even those who had settled near barren lands over v/hich they 
had passed without hindrance for years, saw these lands taken 
up and the old roads fenced and otherwise interrupted. In 
melancholic rhythm they declare that " Settlements are yearly 
made and making on lands whose barrenness might have reasona- 
bly been thought to have proclaimed their security of an unin- 
terrupted road to futurity." 

When the first " return " of the Paxtang Road was at- 
tacked, sinister motives were attributed to those favoring a 
change of route. It was said that they wished to perplex and 
protract travelers on their journeys, " by forcing them out of 
the way the Lands or Houses of Persons desirous to keep or set 
up Taverns." This was not an uncommon objection. Petition- 
ers were frequently charged with trying to promote the interests 
of some particular hostelry, while on the other hand the absence 
of a near-by inn occasionally caused a protest, and was some- 
times assigned as a reason for refusing a road. In one instance, 

75] 



reviewers of a route that had been favorably reported, declared 
their opposition on the ground that " there is no house to recline 
travellers, no, not so much as a run of water for several miles." 

The Paxtang Road was bountifully supplied with water, 
and it was hardly completed when James Graham, of Nantmel, 
undertook to provide for the reclination of the traveling pub- 
lic. He alleged that " he had " an improvement, and that there 
was " no House of Entertainment, from Lancaster County Line 
to James Trego's at ye sign of the White Horse, where the 
said road leads into the Provincial Road, which comes from Lan- 
caster Town to Philada. the said distance being about seventy 
miles." 

The Paxtang Road took its name from the township in 
which it started. As soon as it was opened it was called the 
Paxtang, Pextan or Paxton Road. Later on— seventy years la- 
ter—it was sometimes erroneously referred to as the Old Lan- 
caster Road. After the Horse Shoe Road was laid out in 1752, 
from Brandywine Manor church to Downingtown, connecting 
with the Paxtang Road at the church, the first three names were 
frequently applied to it. 

I love the old road dockets of Chester County, with their 
rough draughts, quaint expressions, curious arguments and 
warnings to the court. How delightfully refreshing to find an 
order of Court perfumed with a few drops of wit ! In one case 
where John Thomas was appointed a viewer, the Clerk consider- 
ately added in parenthesis, " alias ready money," in order that 
the jury might know what member was expected to pay the ex- 
penses of "reclining." 

An inspection of these dockets shows that the first mill own- 
ers along the Brandywine rather enjoyed a rhetorical flourish. 
They asked the granting of roads " for the importing of wheat 
and the exporting of flower." But I must leave them. In 
making my exit I cannot refrain from quoting a preface that 

[ 76 




o 

so 

a 



a 

s: 
o 



OS 
o 



would have done credit to Antony : "Ye following lines are ad- 
dressed to you for yt I have some confidence yt you will construe 
my rustick way of writing so as not to make me an offender 
for a misplaced word when my intention is otherwise, but were 
I master of that elocution, yt politeness of style, accuracy of 
speech, such coherency of expression, as many in the country 
are I should have presented it to your whole fraternity of 
ye bench, were it worthy of their consideration but yt not be- 
ing my talent I'll let it drop." 




77 ] 



FROM SPRINGTON DAM TO DORLAN'S MILLS. 







" Here is the land 
Shaggy with wood, 
With its old valley, 
IMound and flood." 

Emerson — Hamatreya. 

ACK again to Springton Dam ! How 
beautiful it looks in the morning light, 
with the weeping willows near its breast 
dipping their branches far down into its 
waters. No ! these are but reflections 
that I see ; reflections, though, that seem 
like veritable realities. I could linger 
here for hours had I the hours to give, but 
the road tu iJuv. ningtown is long and the sun is leaping upward ; 
I must go. A church that stands close by the roadside invites 
my notice as I pass, and bids me welcome ; at least its doors are 
open. Doors, did I say ? its windows, end and roof, are open. I 
enter it and look around. No ushei's show me to a seat, no of- 
ferings are asked for, nor do I see a single worshipper. The 
church has passed into a ruin, apparently without a mourner. It 
once was owned by Methodists, and afterwards was leased by 
Spiritualists, but now is claimed by no one. For some, no doubt 
the place has sacred memories, but none whatever for the sacri- 
legious wretch who scribbled on these walls his ribald blas- 
phemies. 

Within the wood that seems to stretch indefinitely along 
this road, and in the meadows opposite, old " Davy " Nethery 
gathered burdock, pennyroyal and other herbs, and some affirm 

[78 









o 
3 

H 
O 






p 

OR 







that here he hunted blacksnakes for their tongues. A curious 
character was "Davy," but not more sing-ular, perhaps, than 
other products of " Mormon Hollow." 

In traveling through southern Chester County, I frequently 
have sought to find a barren spot called " Scroggy," but always 
unsuccessfully, the invariable response to every inquiry being " a 
little further south." Even " Tom " Lee, whose farm lies on the 
border of Maryland, assures me most seriously, as he points 
across the Octoraro, "Scroggy is a little further south." In 
looking for " Mormon Hollow " in northern Chester County, this 
experience is duplicated— with some changing of the compass. 
When I stand upon ground that seems to answer every con- 
dition, the owner whispers to me confidentially, " a little further 
north." Occasionally I find a resident who tries to shift it to 
another township, but how useless his effort, for the stain of 
Mormonism rests on the escutcheon of West Nantmeal. Mormon 
seed sprouted in West Nantmeal's soil, and Mormon converts 
were baptized in the Brandywine near Ackland's Mill. It is said 
that Joseph Smith himself once spoke in West Nantmeal Semi- 
nary. This is doubtful, but some sinister and potent influence 
led many of the inhabitants of West Nantmeal to leave their 
Brandywine homes, and follow the slimy tracks of the vile 
prophet as far as Nauvoo— a few, even underwent the hard- 
ships to which the sect was subjected before it finally settled in 
Salt Lake Valley ; the rest, frightened at the fate of Smith, re- 
nounced their creed and returned to Chester County. 

Of all the converts who left " Mormon Hollow " to seek 
ecclesiastical preferment, Edward Hunter was the most promi- 
nent. His tract of four hundred acres on the Brandywine was 
divided, and the greater part conveyed to John Cornog. In his 
deed to Joseph Reed, the following language is used : 

" This indenture made the twenty-third day of May in the 
year of our lord one thousand eight hundred and forty six 

79 ] 



between Edward Hunter and Ann his wife late of West Nant- 
meal Township Chester County and State of Pennsylvania, but 
now of Mavoo in the State of Illinois or on the road 
from thence to California." Significant words. Smith had 
been killed — the Charter of Nauvoo had been defeated by the 
legislature of Illinois, and the Mormons were moving toward 
the Rockies. Hunter went with them and became a Bishop. 

The road from Springton Dam to Dorian's Mills is nearly 
level, and for the most part shaded by trees on either side. At 
some places it almost touches the bank of the stream, at others 
it bears av/ay, but not so far as to prevent your hearing the 
water splash against the rocks that lie along its course. 

At one point where the stream divides, I noticed that the 
smaller branch appeared to haste with nuptial fondness toward 
another stream, and after meeting it, moved quickly onward 
toward a buttonwood, as if to ask the benediction of that ven- 
erable priest upon their union. Meanwhile a dogwood dropped 
its blossoms on their mingled currents. A little later on they 
joined the parent stream, and after flowing quietly through open 
fields, all radiant with sunshine, passed into the shadows of some 
overhanging firs. 

Occasionally, you find memorials of former mills, and catch 
a glimpse of little islands fringed with green, or set in pebbles. 
Here and there you see a flock of sparrows bathing in the 
shallows, and on a rotten stump near by, some crows drying 
themselves in the sun. 

At evening time other views present themselves, views of 
cattle coming through the bars, of tired horses at the troughs, 
of weary laborers returning home. From Springton to Cor- 
nog— from Cornog to Lyndell— from Lyndell to Reed's Road— 
from Reed's Road to Dorian's Mills— so runs the road. 

The confluence of Marsh Creek and the Eastern Bran- 
dywine, just above Dorian's Mills, is a fit place for considering 

[ 80 



some questions that are frequently asked about the Brandywine. 
How many branches are there? How many forks? What is 
meant by the Western Brandywine— the Northern Brandywine— 
the Middle Brandywine— the Eastern Brandywine— the Black 
Brandywine— the Little Brandywine ? 

There are but two branches to-day that bear the name of 
Brandywine ; the Western, beginning in the northwestern part of 
Honeybrook, and the Eastern, in the northeastern corner of that 
township. These branches meet in East Bradford Township, less 
than a mile above Lenape Station, about seven miles below Down- 
ingtown, and their point of confluence is known as " The Forks." 
When, however, this term is found in Colonial annals, or in legal 
and ecclesiastical papers, it often includes all the territory 
between the two streams, from their head-waters to their union. 
Brandywine Manor Church— the Church of the Forks of the 
Brandywine — is, as the crow flies, fifteen miles from the actual 
" Forks." At the present time the name of Brandywine is ap- 
plied to no other branches, but as late as the middle of the last 
century the Marsh Brandywine had not been disowned. It was 
variously known as the Eastern Brandywine or Eastern Branch, 
the Marsh Brandywine or Marsh Branch, and the Black Brandy- 
wine. It has its origin in the great Nantmeal Marsh, and its 
sluggish waters being " too lazy to keep themselves clean," ac- 
quire a dark color from the leaves and mud that collect in 
the bottom of the stream. In 1832, when an application was 
made by some citizens of Uwchlan (at that time undivided) 
for a bridge over Black Horse Run, they describe the run as " a 
branch of the Black Brandywine." 

The Brandywine along whose banks thus far I have roamed, 
was formerly referred to as the Middle Brandywine or Middle 
Branch— the Northern Brandywine or Northern Branch— the 
Eastern Brandywine or Eastern Branch— and now and then as 
the Western Brandywine. 

8i ] 



So long as the name of Brandywine was given to Marsh 
Creek our stream was really the Middle Brandywine. As its 
main source was higher than either of the others, it was not inap- 
propriately called the Northern Brandywine, and considered 
with relation to the Marsh Brandywine, it was a Western 
Brandywine. 

The Western Brandywine I have already mentioned. In 
consequence of its narrowness at a point where the Old Lancas- 
ter Road crosses it, near what is now Siousca — about a mile this 
side of "The Sign of the Wagon," it was called the Little 
Brandywine. 

It is well to remember these distinctions, and even when 
you know them thoroughly, you will be not a little perplexed 
upon meeting with a draught artistically drawn, designed 
to show the boundary line between the townships of West 
Nantmeal and Honeybrook, to find the surveyor giving the 
Western Stream its Eastern sister's name. 

" Brantewein," says Watson, " is a word of Teutonic origin, 
which might have been used equally by Swedes and Dutch to 
express its brandy-colored stream." "The endeavors I have 
used to ascertain the original names of this stream," declares 
Lewis in 1824, "have been wholly fruitless." Indian Hannah, 
"the last of her race that inhabited Chester County, always 
called it by the singular name which it at present bears ; and 
whence this is derived or what occurrence determined it, is 
now but a subject of conjecture." 

At the time Lewis wrote, and for many years before, it was 
the common impression that the creek owed its name to the cir- 
cumstance of a Dutch vessel freighted with brandy and wine, 
having been stranded at its mouth, or of a wagon loaded with the 
same liquors having been overturned into it in the early times of 
the provinces. Did the Dutch seek " to soothe their sorrow by 
naming the stream in memoriam, hoping, like Dogberry, to draw 

[82 




o 



a 
o 

K 



comfort from their losses ? " Bunce seems to think they did, and 
observes besides, that greater rivers have been named for 
smaller causes, " as is sadly witnessed by Big Horns and Little 
Horns, Snakes and Otter Tails." Lewis himself inclined to the 
opinion of Colonel Thomas, of Philadelphia, who thought the 
name was given to it on account of the color of the water, which 
formerly much resembled a mixture of brandy and wine. " This 
color," said he, " was occasioned by the water of a slough seven or 
eight miles above Downingtown ( evidently referring to the Nant- 
meal Marsh ) mingling with the stream. This slough appears 
to have been once a lake which has been drained at length by the 
deepening of the creek's channel." 

Futhey and Cope, like Lewis, have ignored the derivation 
from the overturning of the Dutch vessel laden with brandy, in 
the Dutch language, "brandwijn," and the former two have 
given the distinguished honor to Andrew Braindwine, who at 
an early day owned lands near its mouth. " It was very com- 
mon," say they, " in the olden times in the lower counties, as 
they were called (now the State of Delaware), to name streams 
after the dwellers upon their banks. This creek is shown by the 
old records to have been known as Fishkill until the grant of 
land to Andz'ew Braindwine in 1670, immediately after which it 
is referred to on the records as Braindwine's Kill or Creek, cor- 
rupted into its present form of Brandy wine." 

In 1731, James Harlan conveyed to James Gibbons, of West- 
[83 



town, a tract of five hundred acres of land in or near Nantmeal, 
" lying and being upon a branch of Brandywine, called Chi- 
chokatas." 

I have made several efforts to locate this tract, but have 
not succeeded. The property was devised by James Gibbons to 
his sons, James and Joseph. What they did with it, neither the 
Register's nor the Recorder's office reveals. Indian authorities 
say the probable translation of Chichokatas is, " at the Ford," 
but unfortunately the translation— if correct— furnishes no clue 
to the tract or the stream. 

Since writing the above I find in a reviewer's return on a 
West Nantmeal road in 1744, the following language : . . "to 
a Hickory Tree by a Ford on a Branch of Brandywine Creek in 
James Gibbon's land." 

This branch answers the conditions, and but for the fact 
that Gibbons owned a tract of twelve hundred acres in West 
Nantmeal, besides the one conveyed to him by James Harlan, I 
should regard Chichokatas as the Indian name for Two Log Run. 

After all, my ignorance detracts but little from the pleasure 
I experience in watching the meeting of these waters, in feeling 
the rhythmic movement of the stream, in letting my thoughts 
flow onward with the current. 

" Susqueco ! O Susqueco ! 
Whither do thy waters flow? 
Under arches builded wide — 
Rounded circles in the tide, 
Under bridges mossy brown, 
Through the meadows flowing down, 
Through the woodland and the lea ; 
Singing ever toward the sea. 
Where thy song is hushed at last, 
When the idle dream is passed 
In the infinite and vast ; 
Thither do thy waters flow. 
Stream of beauty, Susqueco!" 

[ 64 







w 






UP THE BLACK BRANDYWINE, 




,&^r']^ 



"Tn-*-:;^ '»-- 



"The worm is sluggish and so is the river— the river is muddy 
and so is the worm. You hardly know whether either of them be 
alive or dead ; but still in the course of time they both manage to 
creep away." Hawthorne— Atnerican Notes. 

HIS river of ours," said Hawthorne, con- 
templating the Concord, "is the most 
sluggish stream that I ever was ac- 
quainted with. I had spent three weeks 
by its side and swam across it every day 
before I could determine which way its 
current ran ; and then I was compelled 
to decide the question by the testimony 
of others and not by my own observation. Owing to the torpor 
of the stream, it has nowhere a bright pebbly shore, nor is there 
so much as a narrow strip of glistening sand in any part of its 
course ; but it slumbers along between broad meadows, or kisses 
the tangled grass of mowing fields and pastures, or bathes the 
overhanging boughs of elder bushes and other water loving 

plants." 

Widen the Marsh Brandywine to the width of Concord 
River, and Hawthorne's description of the latter might be 
adopted without the alteration of a word. Proportionately to 

85] 



its size the Chester County stream can furnish as much black 
mud, while the half torpid worm which Hawthorne dug up for 
bait and used for soliloquy, still presents the fittest illustration 
of its sluggishness. 

And yet, one evening at sunset, as Hawthorne, from a hill- 
top looked down on the Concord sweeping in a semi-circle round 
the hill on which he stood— the central line of a broad vale— 
when he discerned the shadows of every tree and rock imaged 
with a distinctness more charming than reality, when he saw the 
sky and the rich clouds of sunset reflected in its peaceful bosom, 
he felt it could not be so gross and impure as he had previously 
conceived it— "or if so," said he, "it shall be a symbol to me 
that even a human breast which may appear least spiritual in 
some respect, may still have the capacity of reflecting an in- 
finite heaven in its depths, and therefore of enjoying it. It is a 
comfortable thought that the smallest and most turbid mud pud- 
dle can contain its own picture of heaven." Oh, blessed symbol ! 
sweet reflection! that half redeems our poor humanity, and 
makes us view it as a thing of boundless possibilities. 

The subtle power of Hawthorne's genius haunts me every 
time I walk along this creek from "Dorian's" to "The Marsh." 
Each darksome pool, each gloomy hiding place, where the slug- 
gish stream, shut up with rocks and overhung by frowzy trees, 
delights to slumber, is full of sinister suggestions. Black Mud 
and Pictures of Heaven ! the Marsh Brandywine contains them 
both, but let the traveler open his eyes and watch his feet, or he 
may stumble into mud while looking for heaven. 

The ice dam at Dorian's marks the mouth of the Marsh 
Brandywine. If you have seen this Brandywine only from the 
railroad track, you have doubtless formed an exaggerated notion 
of its size. A better view is obtainable from the public road in 
front of Fi-ank Fisher's house, where you can see, besides the 
winding creek, the other features of this most attractive bit of 

[ 86 



scenery. At least a female artist, who returns each year to paint 
it, says so, and who am I that I should differ with a charming 
lady on a point of view? The wooded hills upon the left are 
those that you have crossed in coming here from Dorian's. 
Between them and the large ice houses on the right— which, by 
their very presence, seem to give a most delicious coolness to 
the air— lies the torpid stream, seemingly unable to determine 
whether to enter the quiet race, or make the final plunge over 
the dam breast. 

Toward the head of the ice dam 
is another dam breast ; visible when 
the waters are low, concealed when 
the waters are high. An ancient 
buttonwood, with roots sunk deep 
into the breast, points out the limits 
of the pondage that more than a 
century and a-half ago supplied 
Aston and Pender's "Grist and 
Marcht Mill." The floods have oft- 
times conspired against this tree 
and striven to uproot it, the ice has 
struck its trunk a hundred blows 
or more, and now and then a fallen 
tree that floated down the stream, 
has sought to drag it with it, but 
all in vain. Such eiforts only make it sink its roots a little 
deeper— raise its head a little higher. 

While you look at the water marks on this buttonwood, per- 
mit me to go back a little in the meadow to a kind of lagoon, en- 
closed on one side and end with shrubs and trees and tall dank 
grass, but approachable on the other and nearer side by tussocks. 
Above the pool a lofty poplar thrusts out its branches, on which 
the passing birds of prey delight to sit, and watch for fish. 

[87 







To-day it holds an osprey. I crouch behind a bush to watch 
it. How motionless it is. Five minutes pass— I feel like ruffling 
its serenity, when suddenly, with lightning-like rapidity, it darts 
obliquely toward the water's surface. Splash ! splash ! the pa- 
tient fisherman has caught its prey, and up again it flies— to 
the woods across the dam beyond the railroad, beyond the East- 
ern Brandywine. 

A short distance from Fisher's house I make a halt to look 
at a hay wagon on a wooden bridge. No ! I am mistaken ; it 
is not the wagon that stops me, nor the fragrance of the 
new mown hay, nor the bending willows that cluster round the 
bridge, but the fact that here the stream casts off its torpidness, 
and like the black snake that I nearly trod upon, moves on as if 
it had a mission to fulfill. 













'.'"Tir^jis ■/'"■.!; it 



[ 88 



UWCHLAN. 




"Spell it with a we, Samivil, spell it with a we." 

Dickens— Pickwick Papers. 

p7 PON crossing the Brandywine at Dor- 
ian's Mills, you enter the northern por- 
tion of the original township of Uwchlan. 
Uwchlan! "the township with the un- 
pronounceable name," as some one has 
not improperly called it. Orthoepi- 
cally, Uwchlan is without a peer, while 
orthographically, it has but one formida- 
ble competitor in Chester County. For years— as many a hap- 
less student knows— it has been used as a test question at ex- 
aminations ; for years, as can be proved by documentary evi- 
dence, it has appeared under the various aliases of Uchland, 
Vchlan, Ywchland and Youghland. Even now the Postal De- 
partment of the Government and the inhabitants of this town- 
ship, find themselves unable to agree, and so we continue to 
address our letters to Uwchland Post Office, in Uwchlan town- 
ship. 

Uwchlan (upland) is fragrant with the memories of the 
Welsh Friends— the Johns and the Phipps and the Griffiths and 
the Owens— who settled here in the early part of the Eighteenth 
Century. 
89] 



The Paxtang Road that crossed the Brandywine at what is 
now Lyndell, ran through Uwchlan Township in an easterly di- 
rection, passing in front of "The Sign of the Red Lyon." A 
half mile above Dorian's Mills, just beyond Montrose School 
House, you will meet this old road, and your will is stronger than 




-.3,': 




■^'<WM^:M^ti:. 




v^^ -^;' 



mine if you refuse to accept its gentle invitation to walk as far 
as Lionville. It was there in 1716 that John Cadwalader ex- 
cepted out of his " Tenement and Plantacon a piece of Ground 
on ye side of the Kings Road which ye sJ John Cadwalader 
allotted for a burying place and to set a meeting-house on, 
for ye use of ye people called Quakers." It was there in 1762, 
at the intersection of the Paxtang Road and "several other 
considerable roads" that Dennis Whelan, the landlord of the 
" Red Lion," hoped to build the town of Welsh Pool ; there he 
laid out a number of " dry and wholesome lots with large con- 
veniences," to accommodate "the appliers" and promises of 
commons, school houses, burying grounds and places of worship. 

[ 90 




■-,r 



A Dashing Little 1!ivl-let." Page UU. 



Paxtang Road was to be widened to eighty feet and to be called 
Main street, but none of his inducements had alluring power, 
and the project failed. Possibly the facetious fellow was right 
when he suggested that there was too much inconsistency 
between a "Welsh Pool " and a " Dry Lot." 

This old meeting-house is an object of interest to many, of 
veneration almost, to some, but for me the sight of it awakens 
only mournful reflections. In the darkest hours of the Revolu- 
tion, when many of the Continental soldiers were destitute of 
shoes and stockings and shirts and blankets, when the "in- 
fantry of the snow and the blast," more powerful than British 
troops, was constantly arrayed against them, when " death riding 
on the icy winds of winter," saw Washington on his knees in 
snow praying to Almighty God for aid, it is hardly credible, but 
let the record speak : 

" 1, 8, 1778. A few Days ago the Key of the Meeting- 
house at Uwchlan was demanded by some of the Physicians to 
the Continental Army in order to convert the same into an Hos- 
pital for their sick soldiers, the Friend who had the care of the 
House and Key refusing to deliver it — " 

I have read enough, let us go back to the Brandywine, back 
to the woodland silences, back to the leafy by-paths that we left 
two hours ago, let us forget man's inhumanity, and experience 
Nature's goodness. Hasten ! and I promise you the sweetest 
melody you ever heard. Somehow the hills seem higher going 
back— a fitting name the Welshmen gave them when they called 
them " the land above the valley." But hark ! Do you hear it ? 
Listen ! 

" A hermit thrush in his even song, 
And a murmuring valley stream." 



91 ] 



MILFORD MILLS. 



" Oh youth, 1 was a brook indeed ; 
But lately 
My bed they've deepeii'd, and my speed 

Swell'd greatly, 
That I may haste to yonder mill. 
And so I'm full and never still." 

Goethe— The Youth aiid the Miltilrcam. 










ROM Dorian's Station to Milford Mills is 
about a mile and a half on horseback— 
a little longer on foot. You cross the 
covered bridge over the Marsh Brandy- 
wine, rest a moment at Larkins' Mill, 
climb the hill beyond, and at the next 
bend of the road Milford Mills is in 
sight. The house that crowns the sum- 
mit of the hill in front of you is Mr. 
Murphy's ; so is every other building on the bank. To the left, 
to the right, before, behind, whichever way you look, you see the 
property of Mr. Murphy. The blooded horses in the pasture 
lands, the neat and well selected cattle by the creek, the dog 
that sallies forth to warn you to approach no nearer, things 
animate and things inanimate, all belong to Mr. Murphy ; all ex- 
cept the bridge over the Brandy wine— that belongs to the county. 
Coming up the road, the pillared front of the mansion house 
looks not unlike a Presbyterian church or chapel, but when you 
draw closer and find the mills converted into stables, you quickly 
perceive your error and discover that you are passing through 
a stock farm— the finest in the county. 

[ 92 




Two objects divide the attention of visitors to Milford Mills ; 
Mr. Murphy's farm and an old distillery. As the distillery is 

no longer operated, most visitors prefer 
to inspect the farm. For me, the farm 
is not so interesting as its owner. A 
shrewd Irish Democrat is Mr. Murphy — a 
speculator in oil— the richest man in the 
community— brief in speech and de- 
cisive in action— a warm friend and a 
bitter foe— a fighter who can take knocks and give them. Should 
you wish to form your own impression of his personality, you 
will find him yonder at the gate. 

A jaunt of two miles further up the road, a turn to the 
right, a short walk, and one falls into a Conestoga road. How 
many roads were once called Conestoga no living man can tell. 
An inspection of dockets and conveyances reveals big Cones- 
togas and little Conestogas, short Conestogas, long Conestogas 
and old Conestogas, one of these last antedating the " Old Lan- 
caster Road." 

In more recent times the name attached itself to almost 
every western highway north of Chester Valley. This particu- 
lar Conestoga branches off the Conestoga Pike in West Nant- 
meal, and meets the State Road at the " Eagle." It enjoys the 
distinction of being the road referred to in a petition quoted on 
a previous page, " crossing a branch of the Black Brandy wine 
near Brownback's Clover Mill." This mill was built on the 
Black Horse Run (Cough's Stream) not more than half a mile 
from where I stand. 

The Black Brandywine is less inviting than the Eastern and 
Western Branches, and less accessible. 

From Milford Mills to Flat Rock there are no long stretches 
of road beside it or near it. It has little to show, and conscious 
of its lack of charm, seeks to conceal itself. Not always, how- 

93 ] 




ever, for at one ford, well known as " Krauser's Crossing," it 
issues forth in a most playful mood and furnishes a de- 
lightful bathing spot for children. In- 
deed, some years ago, it grew so boister- 
ous that Chester County's sober and se- 
date Commissioners were forced to bri- 
dle it. The last time I approached this 
crossing— before the bridge was built— 
two little girls were playing here, up to 
their knees in water. At first my presence seemed to disconcert 
them, but I quickly relieved their embarrassment by crying out, 
" play on ! play on ! " Smilingly they resumed their merry sport, 
and I started to go. A few steps, and I turned to catch a gleam 
of brightness from their unsuspecting joy, perchance another 
smile. Too late ! the banks of the stream hid them, and I went 
slowly on my way. 

It might have been the sinking sun or the sad experiences 
of " the Sessions," or the forecasting of these young lives, or the 
inner history of my own, these, or any of these, that solemnized 
my thoughts and made me momentarily forget the Brandywine 
and lose myself in reverie. I can not tell what force it was that 
stirred my soul, I only know that as I trudged along the road 
toward Wallace Inn, I found myself repeating the prayer of 
Bickersteth— 

" I ask not for the honors of this world, 
I seek not freedom from its weariness 
Of daily toil, but O Lord Jesus Christ ! 
Let thy omnipotent prayer prevail for them, 
And keep them from the evil." 



[ 94 



FLAT ROCK AND THE MARSH. 



"Oh what is abroad in the marsh and the terminal sea? 
Somehow my soul seems suddenly free 
From the weighing of fate and the sad discussion of sin, 
By the length and the breadth and the sweep of the marshes of Glynn." 

Sidney Lanier— The Marshes of Glynn. 

LAT ROCK— the home of the copper- 
heads—lies in a wood near the Black 
Brandywine, in East Nantmeal Town- 
ship, not far from the northern bound- 
ary line of Upper Uwchlan. If you 
could follow the stream's channel 
from Krauser's Crossing, the distance 
would not exceed a mile and a half, 
• but the bushes are so thick and the 
brambles so numerous and the ground 
so soggy in places, as to make this well nigh impossible. You must 
perforce go round by Wallace Inn and Fairview Church. On a 
July morning, in company with a friend, I set out to find this 
place which neither of us had seen, and of which both had heard 
so often and so much. As we passed by Fairview Church, the 
shady spots in the churchyard invited us to enter, but East 

95 ] 




Nantmeal is rough and rugged, and the heat was fast becoming 
unendurable, so down a hill— across the Black Brandywine— 
along a level stretch, until Marion Allison's house showed itself 
close to the highway. 

There may be more hospitable people than the Allisons', but 
I have not met them in my travels through Chester County. 

" I should like to see Flat Rock," I said, a little abruptly. 

" I shall be glad to show it to you after dinner," Mr. Allison 
replied, "that is," he significantly added, "if you care to go 
when you know what it is." 

" What is it ? " I inquired, with no small curiosity, 

" A home for copperheads," he answered. " Last year we 
killed twenty-five on the rock, the year before about twenty." 

"Joking?" said I. 

" Honest," said he. 

"Ought we to go?" I asked myself, or rather, "ought I to 
go ? " The soles of my shoes were almost worn through and the 
texture of my pantaloons did seem a trifle thin for protection 
from contact with a serpent's tooth. But a glance at my com- 
panion showed him to be no better off, besides, as the daughter of 
our host bravely offered to act as guide, declination was impos- 
sible. Of course we refused to allow her to undergo any risk on 
our account, and I fortified myself with the reflection that one 
attorney less would not materially interfere with the orderly ad- 
ministration of justice. Moreover, had not a prominent in- 
structor at West Chester only a few weeks before asserted that 
there were no venomous serpents in Chester County? What 
honor in successfully contradicting him ! " Let us out and at 
them ! " I cried, and we started, Allison in front and myself in 
the rear guarding the camera, which filled the centre. This or- 
der we maintained until we reached and crossed a little run 
which marked the limits of safety. Courageously crossing this 
Rubicon we came on to a piece of scraggy ground, thick with 

[96 







X 



o 

o 

PS 



blackberry bushes and spotted with tufts of wild grass. Over 
this we managed to pass unscathed, but I noticed a little ten- 
dency on the part of some of us to lift the foot higher than was 
really necessary— a kind of spring-halt gait. However, we soon 
came to a fence beyond which lay the wood. Hardly had I set 
my foot down on the other side of the bars, until I felt some- 
thing wriggling on the ground directly under my left shoe. " Es- 
cape is impossible," thought I. How foolish ! it was only a 
crooked stick. Soon the path got stony, very stony, then rocky, 
absolutely rocky, then black snake and buzzard crevices showed 
themselves, with heaps of dead and rotten leaves. Between 
dead leaves and rocks, by all means give me rocks. One can 
see objects on a rock, but who can tell the contents of a heap 
of leaves? 

At last we made a turn and went up a slope. I said " we," I 
meant the others, for I made a stop not far from a tree whose 
root had a most maliciously serpentine look. A jump and I 
was past it, a few more steps and I found myself with my com- 
panion on the rock. 

Externally, the rock is about a "hundred and fifty feet long 
and seventy wide, with attendant bowlders on every side. 
About two hundred yards below, the stream runs slowly, for the 
rocks are everywhere. Fifty years ago, a broad breast of rock 
was blown up to increase the current and let it clean itself. 

Some say the copperheads go off in the Summer, and re- 
turn to Flat Rock in the Fall to hold their harvest home. The 
truthfulness of this statement I can neither affirm nor deny, for 
my visits to this place have been too infrequent. The intensity 
of my experiences here, however, has been sufficient to make 
me fully appreciate the genius of Daudet in depicting the sen- 
sations of Tartarin of Tarascon on his lion hunting trip through 
Northern Africa. I frankly confess to experiencing a certain 
degree of pleasurable heroism myself every time I attempt to ex- 

[ 97 




L^uu^.^Lj' 





plain to the uninitiated how copperheads may be hunted and 
avoided, their peculiarities, their methods of fighting, "where 
they should be aimed at and at how many paces off." 

South of Flat Rock, as far down as the wooden bridge, the 
scenery is wild, so wild that not long ago a bald headed eagle 

mistook a point on one 
of these hills for a 
proper stopping place. 
Poor bird ! it paid the 
penalty of its erroneous 
judgment with its life. 
North of Flat Rock you 
come upon black soggy 
soil that marks the be- 
ginning of the Marsh. At 
this point some visitors 
have contended with me, 
that Hawthorne should be dropped, at least, they say, it is un- 
fair longer to continue the comparison between Concord River 
and tlie black stream that issues from the Marsh. I cannot 
agree with them. As a fisherman of the Black Brandywine, I 
find my feelings in harmony with those of the fisherman of 
Concord. "Standing on the weedy margin and throwing the 
line over the elder bushes that dip into the water, it seems 
as if we could catch nothing but frogs and mud or turtles and 
reptiles akin to them, and even when a fish of reputable aspect 
is drawn out one feels a shyness about touching him." 

Of course I grant the stream above Flat Rock lacks illustra- 
tions for his finest moralizings, for one will look in vain to find a 
pond variety of lily ; so, if my company insist, I usually consent 
to lay aside my copy of "American Notes" and turn to Wilkie 
Collins's " Moonstone." 

Strange as it may seem, when seen after a rain, there is 

[ 98 





A Bald-Headed Eagle ^Mistook a Point." Page US. 



something about these hundreds of acres of tussocky ground di- 
vided by a line of dark water that suggests the Shivering Sands. 
There is no sea, no tide, no great patches of nasty ooze, but just 
enough of scum and slime at times on its broad brown face, to 
make one feel that the waters of the former lake may only tem- 
porarily have sunk beneath the multitudinous tufts of grass, may 
even now be waiting but the approach of some uncautious trav- 
eler, to rise and overwhelm him, or drag him downward to its 
depths. 

From one point, the Marsh looks like a great brown bowl 
rimmed round with hills, a fitting hatching place for all the rep- 
tiles of the county, and yet, despite the sombre thoughts it con- 
stantly inspires, the Marsh is fascinating. I saw it last in May — 
toward evening. A cloudy day was giving it a melancholy as- 
pect, when suddenly the sun broke through and changed the 
fashion of the entire landscape. It shone upon the grass and 
gave its green a beauteous tinge of yellow, it shone upon the 
tussocks, imparting a curious lustre to their dullness, it shone 
upon the sluggish stream, transmuting it to gold, and then 
sank down behind the Nantmeal hills. I looked about and 
listened. Not a cricket's chirp, nor a frog's croak, nor a 
bird's song, nothing but the footfall of a tired peddler going up 
the road with a heavy pack upon his back. By following him a 
little distance and turning to the left, I might have traced 
three streamlets to their sources— one on the Millard farm, 
another near Loag's Corner, and the third at the base of the 
mountains. Instead of doing so, I faced about and walked to 
Dorian's Mills. 



99 ] 



THE BIRTHPLACE OF T. BUCHANAN READ. 



" If from this oaten pipe 
Plucked from the shadow of primeval woods 
And waived to changeful numbers by strange airs, 
Born of my native stream in leafy depths 
Of unfrequented glades — somewhat of song 
Pour through its simple stops and wake again 
In other hearts what I have felt in mine. 
Then not in vain I hold it to my lips 
And breathe the fulness of my soul away." 

T. Buchanan Read— The New Pastoral. 




OW far to Corner Ketch?" I asked a 
boy at Dorian's Station. "Two miles 
across the Brandywine," was the as- 
tonishing reply. The roads through 
East Brandywine Township are hilly, 
on a hot day— wearisome ; but to see 
a poet's birthplace is worth an effort, 
and I made the effort. On the west- 
ern side of the Brandywine, south of the bridge, a finger-board 
pointed to a wood, through which my road made many a turn. 
Doctor Johnson's habit of counting posts never commended 
itself to me, but one does find a passing interest in numbering 
the different varieties of trees. Along this road are button- 

[ lOO 



^^:<S*i?^ 




o 



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CS 



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woods and maples, black oaks, white oaks and pin oaks, poplars 
and walnuts, chestnuts and ashes, and here and there a stunted 
cedar. 

At the top of the hill is a school house, in front of which the 
road unites with another from Dowlin's Forge. I stop to take a 
draught of life. What air ! What charming views ! The closest 
calculator could here find amplest compensation for energy ex- 
pended—might even feel the joy of beauty. The rolling country 
to the north suggests the sea. Each hilltop bears a woody crest 
—with wondrous shades of sparkling green, and the white sand 
of the road completes the illusion. On the south the land sinks 
rapidly, then changes quickly, until beyond the blacksmith shop 
it rises like a mountain. Across its top a brown line marks 
the road to Chester Valley. But what is this ? Amidst these 
scenes of beauty, here is death. 



In front of me, from Hope- 
well Cemetery to the cross- 
roads, a funeral fills up the 
road. At the cross-roads— two 
furlongs off— is Corner Ketch. 

Read's house is a field or 
two north of "the Corner," 
which is itself but an insig- 
nificant village, with nothing to offer in the way of interest 
except this little two-story stone dwelling half concealed with 
grape vines, situated at the end of a long lane flanked with 
apple trees. As I sauntered down the lane asking myself how 
much of the building was old, the garden gate into the lane 
opened and a middle-aged Irish woman approached me, with a 
humorous look on her good-natured face, and said : 

" You're looking for Read's place ? " 

" Yes, may I — " 

" Sartainly ye may, go right in by the gate." 

[ lOI 








" Have you a bull dog ? " I inquired. 

" Sure, he'll not hurt ye though ; he jumped a peddler a 
while ago, but he's had his supper now." 

" I think the house looks better a little distance off," I ob- 
served, as I reflected on her enigmatical answer. 

The next time I called, the bull dog was dead. On the porch 

sat a Scotch Collie that looked 
at me with friendly eyes, and 
thrust his head in my hand. 

Can this be the birthplace of 
Read ? you ask yourself, as you 
stand on the flagstones in the 
yard, and mark this " unconven- 
tional old building," with the 
cellar door opening out of the 
parlor. Yes! this is Read's 
birthplace. Forty yeai-s ago his 
country crowned him with the triple crown of Painter, Poet and 
Patriot. To-day, men differ greatly as to the school in which they 
shall place the artist who painted " The Spirit of the Waterfalls ;" 
and the place to which they shall assign the poet who sang " The 
Wagoner of the Alleghanies" and "The Closing Scene;" but 
as yet, no one has undertaken to withhold from the author of 
" The Oath " the title of patriot, or to question the value of his 
sacrificial services at the altar of Freedom. Let his detractors 
place his pictures in the ante-room of the galleries of dis- 
tinguished Painters, let them assign him only standing room in 
poetical corridors, and we shall not much complain of their in- 
justice if they remember only his services to the Republic. 

In 1857, Read sat by the grate of his studio at Rome, and 
dreamingly wrote, ,, .. , , 

^ •' ' "My soul to-day 

Is far away, 
Sailing the Vesuvian Bay." 

[ 102 



In 1860, he was on the Atlantic, headed for home. It was 
not a time for drifting, but for fighting. Rome was forgotten 
in the needs of his country. " If the Union breaks, who cares 
what breaks? But it will not break." No! not if his heroic 
soul can help it. Laying aside the lyre he snatched up the bu- 
gle, and set all hearts aflame. 

There are soldiers in Chester County to-day who read Read's 
bugle call and answered it. 

" Ye freeman, how long will ye stifle 

The vengeance that justice inspires? 
With treason how long will ye trifle, 

And shame the proud name of your sires ? 
Out, out with the sword and the rifle. 

In defence of your homes and your fires. 
The flag of the old Revolution, 

Swear firmly to serve and uphold. 
That no treasonous breath of pollution 
Shall tarnish one star on its fold, 
Swear ! 
And, hark the deep voices replying. 

From graves where your fathers are lying, 
'Swear, oh, swear.' " 

Scan the lines of his battle cries, you who are critical, and 
perhaps you may discover some faulty measure, but if your 
ears are attuned to patriotism, you can hear even now, ay, if 
your fingers have not grown too callous, you can feel beneath his 
rugged words the pulsations of a patriot's heart. 

After all, it is a matter of indifference what you think of 
this poem ; it is enough commendation of it that Lincoln carried 
it in his pocket. 

Is it worth while, amid the activities of life, to pause for a 
few moments at the birthplace of Read? The crater-loving 
traveller, who finds intoxication only in inhaling noxious fumes, 
will quickly answer, "No." To him all pastoral scenes are 
equally insipid. For a devout soul, it is worth while. The 

103 ] 



fires of devotion are rekindled nt this hearth. Not in vain does 
one draw Jiside the curtain to catch a glimpse of Read at 
his mother's kne^. listening to the stories of Jewish valor and 
Christian heroism. A spiritual son of the Maccabees, he trans- 
fom\s these Brandywine hills into Palestinian mountains, and 
jxx^ples them with Israelitish hosts. On yon wixxly Gilead, Gidef»n 
assembles his little Ivxnd and looks down ujx^n the Midianites 
IxMieath hini in the \*alley. In this I'kasture land to the south, 
David wzitches his sheep by night and sings for Read the strains 
of his immortal song. Yes, it is worth while to look upon this 
Palestine of Read's infancy, to pick out its Tabor, to mark the 
course of its Jonlan. to stand on its Olivet, and somewhere near 
at h.and. "in the leafy depths of its unfrequented glades," to 
lind its dark Gethsemane, Over these hills "the blue horizon 
comjvissetl all the world." 

It w;vs here, that his young muse first learned to love and 

dream, •• 7-4, |o\f th< simplest Noss<.un by the rwid. 

To JrMm MK'h dtvjims as will oot coin« Again. " 

It was here, his sx-mpjithies with Nature were developed. 
For him. :ilmost in infancy, tlie vines of his cottage dix>rw:iy 

were full of •• vers** vrriX on e\m- iMf." 

Each transient butterfly, each piping bird, each singing l>ee, each 
cricket " with its s<Mig of jvace," was dear to Read, and near the 
waj-side spring— perhaps this verj- one at which I now am kneel- 
ing—he sat and watched the squirrels steal down to drink. 

•■ And nil the hegs^f markeJ \»ith tan. 
In rust>' girments gr»\- with Just, 
Here m/ .inJ Sf<f>tJ his little can. 
.AnJ hrrJt* his scanty oust." 

Guthrieville— a mile away— still cherishes traditions of a 
tow-headoil lx\v that used to stand by the nxidside and watch the 
wagv^nei-s jviss. but unless I .am greatly mistiiken. it was on the 
sandy n^ that runs by Hojvwell Church that his childish eyes 

[ »04 



saw the chief characters of "The New Pastoral." In some of 
the old fence comers, whore the elder bushes are growing to-day, 
the "Witch of Oakland " gathered her herbs, and somewhere near 
the blacksmith shop, close to the woods — I see no likelier npat — 
met the millwright's daughter, and in a harsh and squeaky voice 
that sounded " like the creak of withered ly^ughs," gave her a 
conditional truth of practical philosophy to carry to her father : 

" Who grudgeth splinters may himself want logs." 

In which of these houses did the "jovial squire" live? I 
cannot tell, but underneath the trees of Hopewell Church you 
still may find some lineal descendants of "the village smith," who 
every Seventh-day was wont to meet " the weaver," and argue 
knotty points of Politics and Scripture. 

The school house where "Olivia and Arthur" met cannot be 
definitely located. Perchance its walls have fallen. Let them 
lie! for the dimpled fingers "that once strayed unchided to 
the master's watch seals," have long since stiffened out in death. 

In middle life, at the cosmopolitan court of Leopold, Read 
saw much that the narrow horizon of his early years had not 
embraced. He met Rossini, and mingled with George Sand, 
Mrs. Trollope and the Brownings. With Ristori at the theater, 
and Verdi at the opera, what more could he ask ? what more 
desire? Everything was his, except the joys of a simple life. 
Such joys, his memory was constantly recalling, his pen con- 
stantly sketching ; hillside homes and shady hamlets, quiet Sab- 
bath.s, rustic chapels and unpretending parsons, with hearts "of 
boundless sympathies," parsons who had learned their solemn 

lessons "among 

The ceaseless jar and whir of rumbling stones 
And clattering hoppers," 

parsons who neither strode through metaphysic mists, 

" nor strove to make 
The smallest of their congregation lose, 
One glimpse of heaven to cast it on the priest." 
'05 ] 



Upon his return from Italy, we find him moralizing by the 
roadside. The sun of his boyhood has passed the zenith and is 
on the decline. A certain sadness fills his meditations, as he 
finds the thickly peopled road of his early years deserted : 

" Standing by thee, I look backward, 
And, as in the light of dreams. 
See the years descend and vanish. 
Like thy tented wains and teams. 

Here 1 stroll along the village 

As in youth's departed morn : 
But 1 miss the crowded coaches, 

And the driver's bugle-horn — 

iVliss the crowd of jovial teamsters 

Filling buckets at the wells, 
With their wains from Conestoga, 

And their orchestras of bells. 

To the mossy way-side tavern 

Comes the noisy throng no more. 
And the faded sign, complaining. 

Swings, unnoticed, at the door ; 

While the old, decrepit tollman, 

Waiting for the few who pass. 
Reads the melancholy story 

In the thickly springing grass." 

I love to linger here and feel the hallowed influences of the 
spot. I honor the poet who recognized his gift as heaven-born and 
found in the closing years of his life a source of infinite pleasure 
in the thought, that in all the poetry he had written, no line 
could be found that breathed a doubt upon the blessed Trinity, 
or the great Redemption of Man. " When I have written my 
verse," said he, " I have been alone with my own soul and with 
God, and not only dared not lie, but the inspiration of the truth 
was to me so beautiful that no unworthy thought ever dared in- 
trude itself upon the page." 

[ io6 




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The place is sacred. I shall not attempt to describe it, 
but shall present instead the picture as Read painted it : 

" Between broad fields of wheat and corn 
Is the lowly home where I was born ; 
The peach-tree leans against the wall, 
And the woodbine wanders over all ; 
There is the shaded doorway still. 
But a stranger's foot has crossed the sill. 

There is the barn— and, as of yore, 

I can smell the hay from the open door. 

And see the busy swallows' throng. 

And hear the peewee's mournful song ; 

But the stranger comes — oh ! painful proof— 

His sheaves are piled to the heated roof. 

There is the orchard— the very trees 
Where my childhood knew long hours of ease. 
And watched the shadowy moments run 
Till my life imbibed more shade than sun ; 
The swing from the bough still sweeps the air. 
But the stranger's children are swinging there. 

There bubbles the shady spring below, 

With its bulrush brook where the hazels grow; 

'Twas here I found the calamus root. 

And watched the minnows poise and shoot, 

And heard the robin lave his wing :— 

But the stranger's bucket is at the spring. 

Oh, ye who daily cross the sill. 
Step lightly, for I love it still ;" 



107 ] 



FROM DORLAN'S MILLS TO DOWLIN'S FORGE. 



' Straight to a wood, in scorn and sliatne, 

Away Count Savern rode— 
Wliere, in tlie soaring furnace-flainc. 

The molton iron glowed. 
Here, late and early, still the brand 
Kindled the smiths, with crafty hand ; 
The bellows heave and the sparkles fly, 
As if they would melt down the mountains high. 

Their strength the fire, the water gave, 

ill interleagued endeavor; 
The mill-wheel, whirred amidst the wave, 

Rolls on for aye and ever— 
Here, day and night resounds the clamor. 
While measured beats the heaving hammer ; 
And, suppled in that ceaseless storm, 
Iron to iron stamps a form. 

Schiller— Fridolin, or The Message to the Forge. 

OWN the road to Dowlin's Forge ! how 
easy the descent. "Stop, look and 
listen," says my inner prompter, as I 
pass a piece of woods. I stop, and 
hear a noise like cattle breaking 
through a thicket. I look, and see 
three little black-faced children gath- 
ering wood, or rather hastening toward the road with wood 
already gathered. " Halt ! " Instantly all grow rigid ; while a 
spaniel that accompanies them squats down between the hinder 
two, and awaits the worst. 

[ io8 




'■^^^^ 




As soon as my camera catches them I release them, and 
away they go as fast as their legs can carry them, the spaniel 
giving me a yelp or two by way of disapproval of my conduct. 
When the last one has disappeared, I take a northeasterly road, 
and in less than half an hour's time find 
myself at the vine-covered bridge at Dor- 
ian's Mills. 

The road along the Brandywine to 
Dowlin's Forge is comparatively level un- 
til you reach the hill west of the old dam, 
whence it descends quickly and abruptly. 
From Dorian's Mill to the Forge the most picturesque spot in 
the stream is at its turn, a quarter of a mile or so above the 
Forge. To appreciate it, in fact, to see it, one must leave the 
road, scramble down an embankment and wade as far as a central 
rock, which can readily be done, as the water does not usually 
rise higher than your knees, and the current is not swift enough 
to make wading disagreeable. 

It is a quiet retreat partly closed in by two hills— ugly hills 
shorn of their wood, both bald, and one of them barren. 

At the water's edge rises a big bowlder surmounted by firs, 
the roots of which wrap themselves about the top of the rock like 
gigantic snakes, and force you to take a second glance before 
you feel quite comfortable. Having done this, you are prepared 
to enjoy the scene. What delight there is in watching the sil- 
very water round the bend, shimmer in the sunlight, dash against 
the rock and send its spray up toward the firs' dark green. 
What charm in listening to its sweet lullabies ! Some come 
here to fish— I come here to dream. 

A stranger who wishes to view the Forge Dam and its sur- 
roundings, will find his observation point on the hill referred to. 
He will see the stream, like a line of light, moving slowly south- 
ward between mountainous hills, and if the day be clear he will 

109 ] 



follow its leading— through the gaps, beyond the meadows to 
the hills that mark the southern side of Chester Valley. Di- 
rectly opposite, on the eastern side of the stream, rises a rugged 
hill, covered with underbrush, with a little stone hovel, half hid- 
den with trees, and near by, rushing down from a mill-race, 
comes a dashing, little rivulet, generously scattering its spark- 
ling waters upon every weed and flower along its course. 

A hundred years ago the Forge that stood in the hollow be- 
longed to an iron master by the name of John Dowlin. At that 
time it was known as the Mary Ann Forge. Since the iron mas- 
ter's wives rejoiced in the names of Jemima and Elizabeth, one 
must seek an explanation of the Forge name a little further 
back. It is found in a conveyance to John Dowlin which recites 
the death of Samuel Hibbert and the descent of the Forge prop- 
erty to several children, one of whom was named Mary and 
another Ann. Singular as it seems to us, it appears to have 
been customary in those days to reward good housewifery or 
filial devotion in this manner. Rebecca and Isabella Furnaces 
in Nantmeal, attest the virtues of two women of that township, 
and Mary Ann Forge preserves the memory of the estimable 
qualities of two women of Willistown. The property conveyed 
to Dowlin seems to have been rich in reminiscences, for in the 
deed to him from Jesse Richards, and Sarah, his wife, the tract 
is referred to as " Sarah's Bower." 

Every time I have visited Dowlin's Forge, I should say 
"site"— for even the old water wheel has disappeared^I have 
been struck by the number of buzzards circling about the place. 
Once I found half a dozen of them squatting on a fence along 
the western side of the stream, holding a consultation, at least 
there was a general nodding of heads. " What does their pres- 
ence here in such numbers mean," I asked a friend. " It 
means," said he, "that the place is dead— has been dead for 
thirty years." 

[ no 



H 

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'-3 




Below the Forge the hills slope down into Chester Valley, 
and the stream enlarges into Shellmire's Dam. Until five years 
ago, Thomas Shellmire owned a mill in Downingtown, and re- 
ceived his power from a race connected with this dam. The 
race is an old one and a long one, but in early times long races 
were not unusual ; they were made rather than dams, being less 
expensive and not so liable to damage by freshets. 

Perhaps no dam in the County has furnished fishermen more 
amusement than Shellmire's. Almost any evening you can see 
bass leaping out of the water, and on the Fourth of July you 
will find a fisherman for every tree along its banks— some sitting 
quietly at the roots, others stretched out in the branches. On 
this anniversary, Hungary, Russia, Austria, Italy, France, Ger- 
many, Ireland and Africa— all have their representatives here, 
armed with dough and helgramites, and not a few with whiskey. 




Ill ] 



BEAVER CREEK. 



" When the Puritans came over 

Our hills and swamps to clear, 
The woods were full of catamounts, 

And Indians red as deer. 
With tomahawks and scalping-knives 

That made folks' heads look queer. 
Oh, the ship from England used to bring 

A hundred wigs a year! " 

Oliver Wendell Holmes — A Song. 

EAVER CREEK flows into the Brandy- 
wine about half a mile above Lancaster 
Avenue in the Borough of Downingtown. 
The creek rises a little south of Brandy- 
wine Manor Church and passes through 
the villages of Bondsville and Fisher- 
ville on its way to Chester Valley. A 
quarter of a century ago, it furnished 
power for the various woolen mills, but now since the mills are 
closed, the creek no longer dallies with their wheels, but dances 
gaily by them on its way to Edge's Flour Mill in the northern 
portion of Cain Township. 

In the rear of the flour mill is a path that leads by many a 
turn to what is known as " Cave Rocks." At the end of this path 

[ 1.2 




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►^ 






7; 




are great quantities of Rocks— some piled up, others tumbled 
about — more than sufficient to satisfy one's expectations, but 
the cave— "Where is the cave?" I ask a colored wood-chop- 
per, sitting on a log, resting his axe. " Up dar, sah," he replies, 
pointing toward a high rock from which I had just clambered 
down, "you'll find it dar, sah." 

I did not find it there, however, nor could he, but why com- 
plain ; the name is poetical, and the exercise is not injurious, 
not even unpleasant. 

Were it not for the size of these rocks I might almost con- 
clude I had found the place referred to by Lewis, " above Down- 
ingtown and about a mile south of the pike," where the Indians 
once piled up stones over the graves of their companions, and 
afterwards, during the Revolutionary War, threw the pile down 
and carried off the bones that were buried underneath it. 

In the meadow land, below Edge's Mill, Beaver creek curves 
to the east and circles through the links of the Beaver Creek Golf 



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Club. The creek is full of fish — mainly suckers, and is crossed 
at intervals by little bridges. At a distance I saw on one of 
these bridges, what, to my inexperienced eye, looked like a golfer 

[ "3 




resting on his lofter ; drawing closer I discovered that unwit- 
tingly I had done injustice 
to an aged fisherman of 
Coatesville. Inwardly I 
begged his pardon and 
left him with his hopes. 
The pasture along Beaver 
Creek is rich, and the cat- 
tle that one sees brows- 
ing here are sleek. Be- 
low Irwin Pollock's farm 
the Downingtown and 
Ephrata Turnpike crosses 
the creek on a stone bridge. Its date stone is marked 1805. A 
little northeast of this bridge is an old grist mill facing the 
north, once a part of a five hundred acre plantation, knowTi as 
" Aston Terrace." In 1739, George Aston and his wife conveyed 
it to Roger Hunt, who died about 1764. Since then its succes- 
sive owners have been James Webb, Samuel Hains, Robert 
Roberts, Samuel Miller, James McConnell, Samuel Ringwalt, 
Anna Phelps and Jane E. Ringwalt, Abiah P. Ringwalt, and John 
T. Pollock. 

The public road that passes in front of this mill is a rem- 
nant of the Hoi-se Shoe Road that was laid out in 1752. Prior 
to that date a road known as the Little Conestoga, led from the 
Manor of Springton through the township of East Cain, to the 
Provincial or Old Lancaster Road, near the mill of Thomas 
Downing. The Horse Shoe Road began in the Paxtang Road 
near the Presbj-terian Meeting House, followed the line of the 
Little Conestoga " near to Roger Hunt's mill," crossed the Bran- 
dywine north of Beaver Creek, continued on the eastern side of 
the Brandywine, and ended in the Provincial Road near Thomas 
Downing's Mill— now Bicking's Mill, opposite the Swan Hotel. 

[ 114 







■< 



In 1843, Joseph R. Downing, "being of advanced age," de- 
vised part of the lands devised to him by his father, on the east 
side of the Brandywine and north of Lancaster Turnpike, to his 
son William W., and another part to his son Samuel J., and made 
the dividing line between them " the middle of the Horse Shoe 
Road, now vacated." The vacation of this portion of the road 
occurred in 1840. 

You can go over this portion of its route to-day by enter- 
ing the vacated road immediately east of 'Squire Carpenter's of- 
fice in Downingtown, and taking a northwesterly course for 
about a thousand feet, until you come to a spring run. At this 
point, by bearing strongly to the west, in a few minutes you will 
reach the Brandywine at the spot where a wooden bridge 
formerly stood. West of the stream the route of the old road 
is easily perceived until the open road is reached in front of the 
mill. A hundred and fifty yards beyond the mill it turns north- 
westerly toward the farm of Joseph Baugh. 

The following copy of a rough draft attached to a " return " 




■••■;:>V.. 

rt ty 

in 1787, shows the general course of the road near Downingtown. 

115 ] 




In 1796, a year after the Lancaster Turnpike had been 
opened to public travel, a road was asked for leading from the 
turnpike near Samuel Hunt's, to the Horse Shoe Road. The 
draught accompanying the reviewers' re- 
turn shows not only the situation of the mill, 
—then owned by Samuel Hains — but also 
the relative locations of the Horse Shoe 
Road and the Lancaster Turnpike, which 
latter road had adopted the course of the 
Old Lancaster Road through Downingtown. 
The Horse Shoe Road was known by several 
names. It was called the Paxtang Road be- 
cause it connected with the Old Paxtang 
Road near the Presbyterian Meeting House ; 
the Manor Road, because it began just inside 

Springton Man- 
or ; the Dunk- 
erton Road, 




because in connection with the 
Paxtang Road it led to Dunk- 
erstown, " to 
the Camp 
of the Soli- 
tary, Lager 
der Ein- 



or more 
properly 
Ephrata." But 
how did it get its 
Horse Shoe name? 
Frankly, I do not 
know, nor have I ever 
met with any satisfactory ex 
planation. In its own proper 
course from Springton Manor to 
Downingtown, there was no curve that 
by the wildest imagination, could be tor- 
tured into a horse shoe. I have already de- 
scribed its course as far as Joseph Baugh's, beyond which it con- 

[ 116 



s V samen, 

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P 




tinued northwesterly to the Manor. An examination of the 
above plot, made in 1807, a few years after the Downingtown, 
Ephrata and Harrisburg Turnpike had been thrown open to pub- 
lic travel, shows that the vacated course of the Horse Shoe 
Road from the northern line of Cain Township to the Manor 
Church, and the route of the Turnpike, were practically the 
same. Those who have driven the latter road will cudgel their 
memory in vain for a Horse Shoe Curve. 

What then ? Some say we must look for an explanation not 
in the curves of the road, but on the road. It was called the 
Horse Shoe Road because "forsooth," (as one of my legal 
friends would say ) it was a much traveled road and horse shoes 
were frequently found thereon. That it was a much traveled 
road is true ; residents of the county whose terminus was Down- 
ingtown, used it, and settlers and wagoners whose terminus was 
Philadelphia, preferred it to the Paxtang Road beyond the Pres- 
byterian Meeting House, in consequence of the disclaimer by 
West Nantmeal and Uwchlan Townships, of a piece of land 
near the Brandywine, through which the Paxtang Road ran. 

Others, finding the road occasionally spelled " Horse Shew " 
or " Show," declare that " Shoe " is a corruption, and the interpre- 
tation an obvious one. I have never found Horse Shew used 
but twice. Horse Show once, and in no instance until the name 
Horse Shoe had been applied for years. Analogy is against 
both views. The explanation must be found in its connection 
with another road. It connected with two — the Old Lancaster 
at Downingtown— the Paxtang at Springton Manor. At the 
time it was laid out a road was opened from the southern line of 
Uwchlan to the Old Lancaster Road, but the line of these three 
roads would hardly make a deep dish, to say nothing of a horse 
shoe. Its angle with the Paxtang Road is the only explanation 
left, and is a very plausible one when it is remembered that as 
far back as 1771, it was called the Paxtang or Horse Shoe Road. 

[ "7 



DOWNINGTOWN AND THE OLD LANCASTER ROAD. 



" And when his bones are dust, his grave a blanl<, 
His station, generation, even his nation, 
Become a thing, or nothing save to rantc 
In chronological commemoration. 
Some dull MS. oblivion long has sank, 
Or graven stone, found in a barrack's station, 
In digging the foundation of a closet, 
IVlay turn his name up, as a rare deposit." 

Byron— Don Juan. 

OWNINGTOWN! the most interesting 
town in Chester County. Seated in an 
easy chair on the porch of the Swan 
Hotel, three centuries pass before me. 
The Eighteenth and Nineteenth I see 
distinctly ; the Twentieth appears some- 
what dim and misty; I hear it rather 
than see it as it inishes wildly westward on the line of the Penn- 
sylvania Railroad. 

The street that runs in front of the Swan and crosses the 
Brandywine on a stone bridge beyond Bicking's Paper Mill, is no 
common highway, but a lineal descendant of the Old Lancaster 
Road. 

[ ii8 




The open space to the east of 'Squire Carpenter's office— 
almost opposite where I sit— is the end of the Horse Shoe Road. 
Its successor, the Downingtown, Ephrata and Harrisburg Turn- 
pike, commonly known as the Horse Shoe Pike, enters Downing- 
town on the western side of the Brandy wine. 

In the twilight the Horse Shoe Road under the trees, at- 
tracts my gaze, but disregards my entreaties and as heretofore, 
refuses to disclose the meaning of her name. 

Downingtown is rich in antiques, evidently believing with 
Hugo, that " nothing is more tragic and more deadly than great 
demolitions. He who pulls down his house, pulls down his 
family ; he who destroys his dwelling, destroys his name. The 
ancient honor clings to these ancient stones." East of the 
bridge is one of these 
old buildings— a quaint 
log house, in the yard of 
which a half dozen little 
pickaninnies are play- 
ing. To this house about 
1790, Joseph Downing 
took his bride. It is in- 
teresting to walk a half 
mile westward and see 
another landmark of the 
Eighteenth Century -the Hunt Mansion built in 1727. In its 
various colored brick (which tradition says were imported), in 
its wide hall, sharp gables and heavy wainscoting, you recognize 
at once the old English style, and are not surprised to learn that 
its occupant, Roger Hunt, was a Commissary of King George the 
Third in the French and Indian War. It is no less interesting 
to face about and stroll a mile or so to the Fox Mansion, form- 
erly John Downing's Hotel, on the porch of which the grand- 
father of Ziba Mercer once saw the portly fignare of George 
119 ] 




...™^jjjlit*«M*llB' 




Washington. It was here, at the sign of the " King in Arms," 
that the Revolutionary County Committee met in 1776. 

Even a lover of musty deeds, and rare parchments, will find 

congenial occupation in 
inspecting some old but- 
tonwoods, particularly 
one — a monument of 
Richard Downing's title 
—that still stands close 
to his mill-race. And 
yet, strange as it may 
seem, I have known per- 
sons who cared for none 
of these things, but pre- 
ferred, instead, to stand on the bridge and wonder why the Bap- 
tists retreated so far from the water, while their Methodist 
brethren built their church almost over the stream. For my- 
self, I experience much pleasure in noting the mingling of the 
old and the new along this quiet, shady avenue. John Ruskin 
himself, in his most querulous mood, could have found no mo- 
notonous uniformity hei'e, in material, style or color. A beetle- 
browed stone house looks across the street at a lofty brick, a lit- 
tle library decorated with vines, invitingly opens its doors not 
far away from a rough old corn and grist mill that bars the pub- 
lic with its notice of " no admittance ; " holly-hocks decorate one 
yard, weeping-willows help to hide decay in another. For a 
meditative stroll at evening, give me Lancaster Avenue from 
the Swan Hotel to Uwchlan Road. 

In the early part of the Eighteenth Century, Thomas Moore 
became the owner of three tracts of land in the southern part 
of Cain Township, which township at that time extended as far 
north as Nantmeal. On one of these tracts, east of the Bran- 
dywine, was "a water corn mill," built as early as 1716. This 

[ I20 



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mill ( afterwards Shellmire's ) was perhaps as widely known as 
any in the county. 

Thomas Moore died in 1738, and the corn mill and three 
tracts of land were conveyed to John Taylor, who in 1739, 
deeded five hundred and sixty-one acres north of the Philadel- 
phia Road, and in 1747, a saw-mill lot of two and a half acres 
south of the Philadelphia Road, to Thomas Downing. Two hun- 
dred and twenty-three acres south of the Philadelphia Road, 
were purchased in 1747, by Jonathan Parke. 

During the twenty-five years that followed the death of 
Thomas Moore, the village, with its environments, developed 
greatly. To its corn mill and saw mill were added a hemp mill, 
fulling mill, oil mill and other mills, until by the end of that 
period it had become a Mill-town, and was generally known as 
such. 

In its development the Downing family was a prominent 
factor. Thomas Downing — what a lawyer would call " the Per- 
quisitor "— came from Devonshire, England, and was a member 
of the Society of Friends. If he had founded no industries, 
one of the directions in his will would entitle him to honorable 
mention : " As many poor people have formerly purchased of 
me and were become debtors my intent and meaning is that I do 
hereby forgive the said poor people all the book debts that may 
stand in my book against them at the time of my decease and I 
do hereby frankly acquit and discharge them from paying the 
same." 

What an admirable provision ! What a pity to find it so 
rarely adopted ! A provision that illustrates an important peti- 
tion of our common prayer and recalls to my mind the famous 
admonition of Charles Phillips to his king— "Sire, when you 
answer the last awful summons be your answer this, ' God, I 
forgave, I hope to be forgiven.' " 

It is not my purpose to go into the Downing genealogy ; 

121 ] 



there were Downings and Downings, most of them with good 
English names. There were William and Mary, Richard the 
First and Richard the Second, Downing the Miller and Downing 
the Fuller, Downing the Farmer and Downing the Tavern 
Keeper, which last named Downing in 1774, after reciting the 
inconvenience under which " the inhabitants residing in or near 
the place commonly called and known by the name of Mill- 
town," lay, " for want of a house wherein a school may be kept 
for the instruction of their youth in literature," donated a lot 
on the side of the road leading from Milltown to Uwchlan. 

Before the end of the Eighteenth Century, Milltown took 
the names of its owners, and became Downingstown. 

The Moore tracts, of which I have spoken, were not divided 
by the Philadelphia Road either laterally or longitudinally, but di- 
agonally. The road was the result of the efforts of a number of 
the inhabitants of Lancaster County, including magistrates and 
grand-jurors, who in 1731, complained to the Provincial Council, 
that not having the conveniency of any navigable water for 
bringing the produce of their labor, they were obliged, at great 
expense, to transport it by land carriage, the burden of doing 
which was heavier through the want of suitable roads for car- 
riages to pass. There were few, if any, public roads leading to 
Philadelphia through Lancaster County, and those along which 
they passed through Chester, were incommodious. 

The Council having heard their complaint, appointed seven 
viewers from each county, to lay out the road from the division 
line of the counties to a point where it should fall into the 
King's High Road, in the county of Chester, leading to Phila- 
delphia. 

The viewers made their return in 1733. Unfortunately, 
however, in Whiteland Township, near John Spruce's house, 
where the road fell into the King's High Road— the viewers be- 
ing unprovided with a copy of the records of the King's Road, 

[ 122 



and the lands contiguous to it " being mostly improved and un- 
der corn," were unable to say whether the latter road had been 
altered from the true course or not. 

The reasons for opening the road were obvious, but delay 
followed delay. By 1736, the road had been brought no further 
than Spruce's house, and it was not until the Fall of 1741, that 
the final report was made, and the overseers of the counties of 
Chester and Philadelphia were directed to cause the road to be 
opened and cleared, according to the courses and distances re- 
turned by the viewers. 

Shortly after its opening it was known as the Provincial 
Road, the Philadelphia Road, and the Lancaster Road. Some 
years later it was referred to as the Old Lancaster Road, the 
Great Lancaster Road— to distinguish it from other Lancaster 
roads- and the Great Conestoga Road, to distinguish it from 
other Conestoga Roads, and to mark its adoption of a part of a 
road already known by that name. 

In passing through Milltown it formed the northern bound- 
ary of Jonathan Parke's land and Thomas Downing's saw mill lot. 
West of Milltown it was a part of the boundary line between 
Peter and Samuel Hunt. Marking its route by taverns, it led 
from Downing's Inn to the Ship— a short distance beyond 
which the Gap Road from the west entered it. From the Ship 
it ran a little south of the Wagon in East Cain, after which it 
headed northwestv/ardly for the Black Horse, three miles west 
of which it passed the Wagon in West Cain, and left the county 
at the Mariner's Compass. 

In using this bridge in winter, travelers had reason to re- 
member the Brandywine, especially the Western Branch. " Trav- 
elers in general, as well as your petitioners in particular," states 
a petition for a bridge in 1770, have often found it very difficult 
and hard to pass over the west branch of Brandywine Creek 
where the great Provincial Road leading from Philadelphia to 

123 ] 



Lancaster crosses said creek. It is a fact well known to num- 
bers, and severely felt by many who have had to stand many 
hours in said creek cutting ice in the several seasons of 
the winter in order to pass with their waggons, and many of 
them obliged to leave their waggons froze all night in said creek, 
some of them the said time loaded with liquors and other valua- 
ble goods, and perhaps take them a great part of the next day 
to cut them out." 




Sketch ev Robert Brook — 1806. 

Showing the begiiiniiiR o{ the Harrisburg Pike. 
Also the beginning of the Horse Shoe Road, west of the Smith Shop. 



[ 124 







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THE LANCASTER TURNPIKE. 



' I'm amazed at the signs, 

As I pass through the town ; 
To see the odd mixture, 

A iWagpie and Crown, 
The Axe and the Bottle, 

The Sun and the Lute, 
The Eagie and Child, 

The Shovel and Boot." 

From the British Apollo. 

HIRTY miles to Philadelphia. On Lancas- 
ter Avenue in Downingtown the Half-way 
House, on the south side, and the 30th 
Mile Stone on the north, memorialize the 
first turnpike in America. The road was 
completed in 1794, at a cost of almost half 
a million, and was thrown open to public 
travel in 1795. So enormous was the 
travel and transportation of merchandise over it, that in a few 
years it had as many public houses as mile stones. 

After the opening of the Horse Shoe Pike, it is said that at 
various points beyond the line of Chester County, mile stones 
were set along it indicating so many miles " To T.," and so many 
miles "To P." P. referred to Philadelphia. On this all are 
agreed, but to what did T. refer? to Turnpike or Towningtown? 
Some Dutchmen whom I have interviewed, admit that it referred 
to Downingtown. Julius Sachse, in his work on " German Secta- 
rians in Pennsylvania," entertaining the view that the intellectu- 
ality of the Pennsylvania Dutch is at stake, has come to their 
relief at the expense of Downingtown, and declares : 

125 ] 




" To the uninitiated these letters are something of a puzzle, 
especially when told that the upper characters mean miles to 
Downingtown— an incident which has been seized up and brought 
out, evidently by ignorant and biased writers, whenever they 
wish to say anything against the intellectuality of the Pennsyl- 
vania-German. More than one writer has made merry over the 
Pennsylvania-Dutch, who, according to him, published their ig- 
norance to the world on their mile stones, by spelling Downing- 
town with a 'T.'" 

" Now, the fact of the matter is," says Mr. Sachse, " that 
the shoe is on the other foot— the " T " does not stand for Down- 
ingtown, but for Turnpike. It will be recollected that the turn- 
pike between Philadelphia and Lancaster was the first hard road 
in the United States, and was for years alluded to as ' the Turn- 
pike.' " 

JVobis ea res magmiiidine parum comperta est. 

I have been asked whether the course of the Philadelphia 
and Lancaster Turnpike through and near Downingtown, dif- 
fered materially from that of the Old Lancaster Road. It did 
not. From the 29th Mile Stone, east of Downingtown, to a 
point several hundred yards west of the 31st Mile Stone their 
courses were practically the same. The 29th Mile Stone can be 
found to-day under some vines opposite the silo of Howard 
Seeds. The 31st Mile Stone stands near a fence a little east 
of the water tanks of the Pennsylvania Railroad. The Note 
Book of Robert Brooke, who completed 
his survey of the Turnpike in 
1806, contains the oppo- 
site illustration, with 
the remark— "the Old 
L road falls into the T 
road at this angle ( s. 70 "^ 30 ' w. ) in a direct line with the next 
following course." 

[ 126 








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Ed 



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Passing by Hunt Downing's Tavern and the public road 
leading to the Red Lion, and Edge's Half- 
way House, and the bridge over Down- 
ing's mill race, he makes a pause at the 
Horse Shoe Road, " leading from the P. 
& L. T. road n. 50 J ° w. abt i mile, then 
circling round to the left crossing the 
Brandywine and falling into the Down- 
ingtown, Ephrata & Harrisburg T road 
abt ij miles above the P. & L. T. road." 
Stopping at the stone bridge over the 
Brandywine long enough to sketch it, Brooke continues on to the 
31st Mile Stone. Ninety-seven perches beyond this stone he 

notes an angle and ob- 
serves : " At this angle 
the Old L. road leaves the 
T. road and passes along 
in front of John Edge's 
House but is shut up and 
vacated from this angle to where it intersects the T. road again 
beyond Wm. Hawley's Tavern, Sign of the Waggon— then it is 
open to Lancaster." This note is accompanied by two plots, 
g .. Hawley's Wag- 

on must not be 
-P^""*^ confused with 
the Wagon (now 
'Squire Grubb's 
House ) in West 
Cain. Hawley's 

stood on the south side of the Turnpike, a little west of the 
present residence of James G. Fox. An old gentleman familiar 
with its sign informs me that it pictured four horses to a wagon 
with a little pony in a circle underneath. It was a favorite 
127 ] 




joMN Eoae- 




pastime for frequenters of this hostelry to bet with new comers 
on the number of horses on the sign. " Four," was the common 
almost invariable answer ; whereupon a shout went up — " The 
drinks are on you, you forgot the little pony in the circle." 

But why consume time with angles and mile stones ? Why ? 
Because of what Carlyle would call "the confused mass of 
noise" which still echoes over the courses of these old high- 
ways. It is infinitely more refreshing, I admit, to stand in front 
of one of the Pennsylvania Railroad arches and mark a double 
horizon, or wander along Thousand Acre Run, and watch it as 
it rushes down the hill-side, to supply the engines with water, 
or to create its wonderful pictures of beauty. I see "the 
Special " lapping up its waters, and say to myself, the mission 
of the turnpike is over, when suddenly the horn of the automo- 



bile admon 
that my re 
false; it is 
days of " the 
tion" that 




TIIILJIDELPHIJI JlAD VO)F^''IXG- 
TOfVX 

ACCOMMODATION 

ST A GE. 

THE public are rcsjisctfully infornied 
tlifit (he siibsciibfis Iiavc cnninunccd 
tiiniiiiis; a line of Stages. Croin Downiiigtowii 
to niilailcl|ibia, called tbc 

ACCOMMODATION. 

They Lave been imlucrd fo set iip'ihiR 
litip i'urlliearenmnindutinn ol'lbe inhabilaD(8 
uT no\viiiu;(louu and I lie way passcncers no 



ishes me 
flections are 
only the 
Accomoda- 
are ended. 



[ 128 




mmdiilSMai^BBmaitmiam*Masm\ 



THE MUTTERINGS OF THE BRIDGE. 







" They call me Mad, and well they may, 
When full of rage and trouble, 
1 burst my banks of sand and clay. 
And sweep their wooden bridge away, 
Like withered reeds or stubble." 

Longfellow— Mad River. 

LD ? No ! I have but turned a century 
and stand erect as when the turnpike 
company first cut the figures on my 
date-stone. Even then this Downing- 
town was not a common country stop- 
ping-place, but claimed to be the chief 
town of the county. The older people 
^ called her Milltown, and quite rightly 
too, for all the mills were hers— merchant and grist and saw and 
hemp. 

But she had other claims besides her industries. Hers was 
no mean society. Visitors from the Capitol enjoyed her hospi- 
tality and wrote her praise in poetry, and sometimes men- 
tioned me. 

A little further up the stream— just north of Beaver Creek 
—the Horse Shoe Road brought farmers down across the wooden 
bridge to look at me. So pleased were they with my appear- 
ance that the next year afterwards, they asked the court to 
strengthen the abutments of their wooden bridge with heavier 
stone. I saw the stone— rough stone and heavy, but no one put 
[ 129 



a chisel on them as they did on me. They only hammered, 
hammered, hammered, and brought great heaps of gravel. 
Hains was the man who did the work — a sturdy fellow with an 
honest face. I still recall the day when calling to his men, who 
were about to leave, he said, " We'll have to get more stone to 
keep this stream in bounds," and then more stone was gotten 
and more gravel, too. At last a jury came to view it, who first 
came out to look at me, and then walked up that bank. When 
they came back and told how Hains had done his work even bet- 
ter than his contract called for, Hains rubbed his hands and 
laughed— a hearty laugh : and proudly said, " I think that bridge 
will stand." 'Twas just about the time another turnpike 
started on the western side, and those who owned it bridled 
Beaver Creek and made it do their bidding. When this was open 
travelers left the old road, and I seldom heard the tramp of 
horses on its floor. The boys would run across it ( so they said ) 
or else walk softly till they reached the portholes, and look down 
upon the fish that sought the sunbath in the shallow water. 

One day the wind was blowing and some shingles fell down 
from its top. A little later came a gust of rain, and pouring 
through the hole, ripped oflf a broken plank ; and not long after- 
wards a great stone tumbled in the stream, but no one cared, they 
said the road had been vacated, and the bridge was useless. 'Tis 
hard to see a bridge decay. I've seen both, but far more men 
than bridges. One evening late in April, when the stream was 
high, I heard a man say, as he shook the water off his hat, 
"twill be a hard night for the wooden bridge." The rain kept 
falling on till midnight, then it ceased, and through the dull and 
heavy mist I saw the moon peep out behind an ugly cloud. I 
saw the flood of rising waters. They err who call this stream 
the gentle, slowly moving Brandywine. Could they but see it 
in an angry mood they'd soon revise their terms. I saw, and 
shook with fear. It seemed as if the tide must reach the key- 

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stone of my arch, then I heard a groan like trees make when they 
fall against each other in the forest, followed by a loud hurrah 
of boisterous waters. I looked again, and saw what seemed a mass 
of moving blackness that rose and sunk alternately. Bracing 
myself, I waited in the darkness — till its timbers struck me and 
I knew no more till morning, when I heard the milkman say, 
"the bridge went down last night." 

Do I remember Robert Brooke — the young surveyor who, 
when this road was finished, made a book of surveys ? It seems 
but yesterday he sat beneath a tree that leaned like yonder 
buttonwood across the stream, and laid his instruments aside and 
sketched me. "A pretty bridge," he said, and I felt scarcely 
flattered by his compliment, for I was young and did look well ; 
a gentle rain the day before had washed off every stain and trace 
of dust, but then I'd heard the self same words so often — every 
time the Wagoners drove their heavy teams across me. Across 
these stones? No, not these paving stones, but others that 
were long since ground to dust. A lusty lot these Wagoners 
were that stopped here for the night. One, by the name 
of " Devil Bill," would entertain the crowd with fearful tales, 
which "even to name would be unlawful." A few months 
after they had gone some country Marguerite would come, and 
bending low, would drop her scalding tears upon my coping. 

Once, in the year of 1812, a Wagoner drove his wagon with 
great broad bands of white across its sides, and on the muslin, 
there was printed in black letters so that all could read it as 
he passed, "The war is over, peace has been declared." And 
peace did come, and then the railroads. Oh, how many things 
I've seen and heard. Relate them? No, although I own I am 
a century old, I'm not yet garrulous. I still can keep my se- 
crets, still can be as dumb as stone. 



131 ] 



ALONG THE CREEK ROAD. 




" Now roves the eye 
And, posted on this speculative height, 
Exults in its command." 

The So/a — Cowper. 

HE bridge on the Low Grade Line of the 
Pennsylvania Railroad south of Down- 
ingtown, offers a point of view from 
which the general features of the Val- 

f\. vu' /'•.■/■.;; -'"^^ 'sy of the Brandywine below and the 
-'^■^Pii^fM^^j^^k hill country above the town, can be 

clearly seen. Considered as an engi- 
neering feat, the bridge is praiseworthy, 
but the railroad company deserves censure for not making this 
observation point easier of access. In deference to an indulgent 
public, its engineers should have provided at least one path on 
each side of the embankment. As it is, you must either walk a 
considerable distance along the line or climb up over stones and 
cinders. Once up, however, you are repaid. At first you will 
not notice the prospect so much as the triangular shape of your 
companion— if you have one. So high is this bridge that invol- 
untarily visitors spread out their feet to furnish pyramidal 
bases for their heads. When the palpitation incidental to the 
unexpected passage of a freight train has subsided, and one's 
legs resume their functions, the views on either side appear 

[ 13^ 



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most pleasing. Northward is the long line of the Valley Hills, 
with a great gap at Dowlin's Forge ; underneath you is Solitude 
Picnic Grounds, with its sombre pine trees, silver stream and 
rich green meadows, dotted here and there with piles of paper 
boards, while southward the Brandywine and the Electric Road 
to West Chester run companionably together for some miles, 
until they lose themselves among the hills of Bradford. 

At the foot of the railroad embankment on the western 
side of the Brandywine, a 
path leads up to the 
Young Men's Christian As- 
sociation Quarters at the 
top of Laurel Hill. The 
walk to these quarters is 
one that taxes wind and 
muscle. The hill is cov- 
ered with small chestnut 
timber, everywhere inter- 
spersed with laurel, the 
path itself being lined with 




ferns. Up ! up ! up ! over 






•^% 



slippery stones, until a 

flag-pole shows itself, then ten puffs more and you are at the 

top, in the midst of cottages and agreeable people. 

On the south side of Laurel Hill a well traveled foot-path 
goes down to the Creek Road. This road is a favorite drive and 
deservedly so. On the right are precipitous hills bristling with 
trees, on the left are sunny meadows, and a stream just noisy 
enough to be companionable. 

A few years ago the West Chester Electric Railway Com- 
pany laid out a park for colored people in one of the meadows, 
and tried to woo them by giving it the name of Brandywine. 
To-day a few boards show the site of a dancing pavilion, and a 

133 ] 



couple of broken planks mark the location of a former bridge 
leading to it. 

A mile or so from the railroad bridge, at one of the turns in 

the Creek Road, a huge rock 
raises itself and apparently 
blocks the highway. Appar- 
ently only ; for the road winds 
gracefully around it, and hav- 
ing done so, straightens itself 
again. This rock is known to 
all lovers of trailing arbutus, 
for many a bunch of that wan- 
dering flower has been gathered 
near its top. A centuiy ago it 
was called " Hawley's Rock." 
A lonely spot on a dark night ! 
A delightful resting place on an 
August afternoon ! Of recent 
years it looks much better than it used to, better since the rains 
have washed oft' the advertisements from its rugged sides and 
left them free for the delicate decorations of the pretty, but 
poisonous ivy. From this rock it is scarcely an eighth of a mile 
to the ruins of Hawley's saw mill, where a boisterous run con- 
tributes its waters to the Brandywine and adds a feature to 
what is confessedly one of the most picturesque scenes from 
DowTiingtown to Lenape. 

A little further down the stream stands Gibson's Bridge, di- 
rectly opposite. Harmony Hill Station, on the Electric Road. 
The hamlet that gave the name to the station lies a mile east- 
ward, and was once known as " Scalp Level." The Indians were 
not— as some have suggested— responsible for this sinister desig- 
nation, but an antagonist of Moses Hiddleson, who fouled him 
in a wTestling match. 

[ 134 








M, 



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js*^;^ ' 



To those historically inclined, the dwelling house of Peter 
Pollock ( once the prop- ^^ 

erty of William Su- 
gar) will prove par- 
ticularly attractive. 
Here, if reports be 
true, was once a station 
on the Underground 
Railroad, where a fu- 
gitive slave could close 
his eyes in sleep and 
dream of freedom. 

At Sugar's Bridge, a quarter of a mile below, the Brandy- 
wine makes a turn to the east. In the rock above the bridge 
some visitors have thought they could discern the rough-hewn 
features of an Indian Chieftain. It needs an agile fancy and a 

keen, bright eye, to see 
this outline clearly, and 
having neither of these 
requisites, I generally 
pass on to Hiddleson's 
Wheelwright Shop. Poor 
Joe ! JVU nisi honuni, 
I never shall forget the 
time I met him medi- 
tating at a cross-roads 
up in Wallace Township : 
"There aint no use in 
coming here to skirmish 
for Commissioner," says 
he, " for sixteen of 'em 



has passed me by al- 
ready, and every one of 'em says as how he's got the township." 

[ 135 




South of his shops a stone's throw or two, lies Scott's 
Island, a quiet, dreamy place, where many go to fish and sleep, 
assured that when they waken their poles will not be in the 
least disturbed. 

Below Scott's Island, Valley Creek empties itself into the 
Brandywine. This creek rises in Chester Valley, east of Glen- 
loch, and takes its name from its source. Every fisherman 
knows it— knows it well. In other days it was a home for fall 
fish, even now it shelters a few. Almost every schoolboy has 
sat on its rocks, or stretched himself out on some of its bridges, 
or followed it up, along the shady road by Grubb's mill to the 
turning point of its course, near a bridge of the Pennsylvania 
Railroad. 




Road Plot Showing Hawley'6 Mill. 



[ 136 




o 



COPE'S DAM, 



" ' Take my bait, O Sturgeon, Nahm;i, 
Come up from below the water, 
Let us see which is the stronger ; ' 
And he dropped his line of cedar 
Through the clear, transparent water. 
Waited vainly for an answer, 
Long sat waiting for an answer, 
And repeating loud and louder, 
'Take my bait, O King of Fishes.'" 

Longfellow— Hiawatha . 

OPE'S DAM ! Could one believe but a 
tithe of the round, well varnished tales 
of well known fishermen, the big fish 
that makes this dam its habitat, and 
daily takes its bait in courses, must long 
since have had its mouth adorned with 
all varieties of hooks. 

" When I was at Cope's dam," has 
been for years a common prelude to a successful breach of the 
Ninth Commandment ; then follows an exhibition of a warped 
pole and broken line, or at least a badly strained and battered 
reel. To use judicial language, he " rests his case " on these 

exhibits. 

And yet, when one considers it, what more convincing proof 
could a fisherman produce? Lines and poles and reels are all 
the equipments that any fisherman takes with him, except his 
bottle, which being lost in his strenuous struggles with the 

137 ] 




" Nahma " of the dam, cannot of course be offered, and if it 
could be, it would furnish neither evidence of skill in fishing 
nor I fear much opportunity for fellowship. 

"Can't you answer the question without repeating it," I 
have heard a judge inquire, when he had reason to suspect a 
witness of treasonable designs on truth. For the same reason 
one feels like asking a fisherman who starts with this ancient 
formula, " Can't you tell your tale without that ' Cope's Dam ' 
preface ? " " Give us a beginning, at least, with some fla- 
vor of originality ! " In vain ! in vain ! Before the mind can 
frame its words of disapproval, the old and slippery introduc- 
tion has led its user into the miry marshes of mendacity, whence 
all extrication is impossible. Once there was reason to hope 
for its gradual discontinuance, but the inconsiderate action of 
the West Chester and Downingtown Electric Road, in placing 
a station at Alton, only a half mile distant from the dam, has 
furnished both inducement and opportunities for its further 
and more general use ; by giving its patrons an inexpensive 
ride in the morning to the fishing ground, and by failing to 
provide them on their return in the evening with a more ra- 
tional explanation of their empty creels. 

Less than twenty years ago, seen from the hill above the old 
mill, Ingram's dam and its surroundings were supremely beauti- 
ful. To-day, while some of this superlative beauty is missing, 
and much of its framework gone, there is enough remaining to 
stir the poet's heart, inspire the artist's pencil, and even cause 
a careless and indifferent traveler to slacken the reins upon his 
horse. 

The centre of the picture is much the same as ever. In the 
foreground, at the breast, the waters seem to linger for a mo- 
ment as if they feign would bid farewell to the dam which 
has received and sheltered them, and to the trees whose glo- 
rious foliage they so faithfully reflected in their passing. But 

[ 138 




Thk Oldkst Man in thio Nkichhokhoou."' Pufie 13'.». 



other waters follow and force them over the falls. See ! there 
they go, splashing back their adieus, till by and by the current 

seizes them and bears them onward— .^, .^ ,, „ . ,, , 

onward toward the rock at the turn. 



In the dam the dark reflections ^^M<^^'^^^^-^-. 
are as perfect as they used to be, and (^^^^J; " -?:._. .^^., .j». 
but for a momentary disturbance ;$%;A-^ 







-fSt: 



iM=r=» 



when some passing heron skims its 
surface, it would seem as if the 
water has really forgotten that its 
mission is to flow. But let him de- 
scribe it who can. Nay, since this scene was created not for de- 
scription, but for enjoyment, rather let its quiet beauty pass into 
his heart. If our more sluggish natures prevent our emotions 
from rising to the heights of the Swiss girl who, passing 
through this portion of East Bradford, suddenly sprang from 
the seat of her carriage and startled its other occupants with 
the shout of " Switzerland ! Oh Switzerland ! " we can at least 

thank God for a landscape of such beauty 
within walking distance of home. 

On the western side of the road 
,^aSfe^^%l^ stands Ingram's Mill. In the dwelling 
5^^fSS^^^-' .•^■^- house opposite the mill, sitting in an 
'"" '' easy chair upon the porch, is the father 

of its present owner-the oldest man in the neighborhood - 
James Ingram. Time has touched him, but not dealt unkindly 
with him. While the wrinkles are deeper set than when I last 
saw him, the step unsteadier, the grasp of his hand less firm, 
while he moves in narrowing circles he has by no means reached 
the last. He can still carve and raise strawberries. The cane 
that rests by his chair is his own work and full of symbolism. 
I ask for his health, and he replies : 

"Well, I've lost my locomotion and a little of my memory 







139 ] 



for the last two years, but otherwise I'm not so bad for a man 
of eighty-two. Eighty-two, that's my age. There were five of us 
brothers two years ago, and our ages added together made just 
four hundred years. Now there are only two of us— Torbert 
and myself. He's eighty-six and I'm eighty-two." 

" I kind o' think, I kind o' think," said he, " I'm the only man 
that ever rode with Stephen Girard in his gig— that is, the only 
man that's living. Now, the way of it was this : Father was 
a contractor. He built the Blockley Almshouse, Cherry Hill and 
Girard College— that is, all except the marble work. Well, 
Stephen sent for him, and I went with him. Stephen wanted 
him to see a farm of his down on the Neck. ' What'll I do with 
the boy?' says Father. ' Throw him in the gig,' says Stephen, 
and in I went. I tell you the road was rough. I was on the 
gi'ound when they laid the foundation-stone of the College, and 
I could pick it out to-day." 

"Have I any Indian darts? I have about five hundred, 
besides spear heads and axes, all of them found in these fields 
around here, and at Robert Johnson's — all except two." How 
my fingers tingled as I went through the box. What variety 
of stone, what variety of form. Some of them were rough, 
with little signs of labor, others were carefully ground and fin- 
ished. 

One was a flint, another a jasper, and there— v/hy, these 
are strangers to our soil. What brought them to this land 
of the Delawares? Thou long, dark, murderous looking spear 
head, what is thy history ? Wa.st thou lost in some display of 
skill, or didst thou pass in deadly conflict through some rival's 
heart ? What hands moulded thee, thou dainty little arrow head, 
and pestle stone, how long ago did some fair Deborah bruise 
the corn beneath thy blows? I wait their answer, but no answer 
comes. I only hear my old friend asking, " Do you know when 
they put in bass? " " No." " Well, I'll tell you, for I was one of 

[ 140 







X 



o 



them— one of the men, I mean, that put them in. Zebe Town- 
send, Brother Torbert and the rest of us chipped in, and raised 
three hundred dollars ; then we notified the government to send 
them on, and they sent them on to Northbrook. Caught them 
in the Potomac- sent them to Northbrook in a tank. From 
Northbrook we hauled them in hogsheads. Hugh E. Steele, be- 
low Coatesville, got some — some more went to the Hoopes' 
place at Wawasset, and the rest of them — just eighty, came 
here. When was it ? about eighteen hundred and seventy-two. 
Thirty years ago. Now, there's not much in the dam but carp, 
but there used to be fish in the Brandy wine— yes, there used to 
be. Why, in '58, Brother Alban and I started out to fish one 
day, from the Poor House to Embreeville— about a mile and a 
half, and in just three hours we had a bushel of fall fish, none 
of them less than a foot, and lots of them eighteen inches." 

In 1782, and for several years before, John 
Hannum had a mill not far from the present 
site of Ingram's. In November of that year he 
presented a petition to the Court of Quarter 
Sessions of Chester County, on the ground of 
"public necessity"— a synonym in too many in- 
stances for private interests— asking for a jury 
to lay out a road leading from his mill " into a 
road leading from the Centre House ( Marshal- 
ton ) to the East Branch of Brandywine Creek. 
The jury appointed by the Court laid out the 
road in accordance with his views, crossing the 
Brandywine just south of his mill, and running 
down the west side. The surveyor inadvertently ( as the plot 
shows) affixed the word "West" instead of "East," to the 
Brandywine, but the petition, location, and the subsequent vaca- 
tion of the road, which occurred in February, 1801, show it to 
have been the Eastern Branch. 




141 ] 



Hannum was one of three Commissioners appointed by a 
" Supplement " of 1784, " to build a new court house and prison 
in the county of Chester, and sell the old court house and 
prison in the borough of Chester." By the terms of the "Sup- 
plement " the new buildings were not to be erected at a greater 
distance than one mile and a half from the Turk's Head Tavern 
in the township of Goshen. 

It was rumored that Hannum fixed this distance in the hope 
of locating these public buildings on his own lands on the left 
bank of the Brandywine, near the junction of Valley Creek. 
"The tradition is fortified," says one, "by the circumstance that 
the * Supplement ' required the said buildings to be to the West 
or Southwest of said Turk's Head Tavern, and on or near 
the straight line from the ferry called the corporation ferry on 
Schuylkill, to the Village of Strasburgh, which straight line 
would pass through or very near to the Colonel's land. But 
he was mistaken in his distance, for his premises proved to be 
more than two miles from the Turk's Head." 

Reader, I have never fished at this place, but I confess to 
looking on. Years ago, when farmers were allowed a little 
recreation after harvest, in their own streams, on their own 
grounds, with the only means their busy life allowed them to 
use, I walked over to the dam one day, attracted by a group 
of men upon the banks. 

" What an iligant place it is for car-rp," said an Irishman 
standing by. 

" Have any been caught here," I asked. 

"Divil a one," said he. "They're all here, ivery one." 
There were eight men in the group, eight men with a large 
seine. It was a tedious process ; first they removed the cover, 
then they stretched the net out on the grass to inspect it. After 
the meshes were carefully examined, they fastened up the holes, 
increased the leads, tried the ropes, until all were satisfied 

[ 142 




o 



that everything was in order ; then they entered -eight fisher- 
men, every one. 

" I'm stuck in the mud," said a Httle fellow, who disappeared 
for a minute, and then came up again playing like an inter- 
mittent fountain, "I'm stuck in the mud." They assigned a 
taller man to his position, and by slow and easy stages, all took 
their places once again, and the swinging movement began. 
"The net must be full of 'em," said the fellow at the end, "for I 
feel a big one now." " It's me foot ye've got hold of," cried his 
companion in the middle. " Now aise her or I'll kick ye." So it 
proceeded. At last, by dint of struggle and sweat and strife, 
the foremost of them managed to reach the bank, where he 
shouted to a negro standing by, " Bring the pans and bring them 
quick." Slowly the net came in, fold after fold : plenty of mud, 
some crooked branches— more mud and old roots, but nothing in 
the way of fish, until the last fold was reached, and then down, 
down, down, in the lowest bottom of the net, a little sunfish 
could be seen, with its gills caught in some string that had been 
used to tie up the meshes-that was all— a little sunfish spat- 
tered with mud. 




143 ] 



COPE'S BRIDGE. 



'Oh Horace! the rustic still rests by the river, 
But the river flows on, and flows past him forever ! " 

Meredith— Lticile. 




HIS is Cope's Bridge, stranger, built in 
1807, at a cost of twenty-six thousand 
dollars. Search the Bridge Dockets in 
the office of the Clerk of Courts and 
you will discover the names of the 
petitioners; make your examination 
thorough enough and you will find every 
detail of its cost ; meanwhile let me 
rest. Beside this old stone wall let me remember and dream. 

More than a quarter of a century has floated down this 
stream since I first cast my line into its waters and waited— ate 
my lunch and waited— for the fish that swam around and eyed, 
but never touched my bait. 

Since then, what changes time has wrought. The wood to 
the east of the road is a mere thicket now, the lofty oaks in 
whose tops the gray squirrels played and felt themselves secure, 
have fallen beneath the woodman's axe ; the road itself, which 
almost touched the stream, has been vacated, while the mill 
wheel opposite, stands motionless, and rots. 

[ 144 



o 



W 
S 
5 



13 




3- v^ 



Never have I passed this bridge on foot without stopping ; 
rarely have I driven over it without bringing my horse to a 
walk. Wrapped in buffalo robes, I have looked out of my sleigh 
when the icy hand of winter lay heavy on the stream, when the 
trees were bare and shrunken, and the old mill stood like some 
wretched outcast, shivering in the gale. 

I have seen it in the Spring-time, when the hand of winter 
was relaxed and its waters flowed joyously to the song of birds, 
when lovers drove along the road, and the stream leaped up in 
spray to kiss the flowers on its banks ^. ^ _^^ 

Beyond that bend, under the cool '-' v , ''I-^ , 

shade of yonder maples, many a tired ^ rV^l'-^j-f^??>'^^ j ' 
fisherman has sought relief from the '/C^r^^i i 'J^^'^ ^"^ 
noontide glare of a summer sun, and ^^JtP^^. *', 

slaked his thirst at the sparkling waters *^>_^ 

of Laurel Spring. Many a carriage, 
too, has stopped while some dainty hand * 

dug up a fern that nestled in the shadows of those shelving 
rocks. 

In other Autumns I have stood, as now I stand, looking at the 
leaves in their coats of russet and gold, scattered by the winds 
upon the stream, whirling around in the eddies, or slowly moving 
out of sight. At other times I have seen, as now I see, the 
great shadows which the sycamores cast, and the strong reflec- 
tion of the arches in the stream, but to-day, as lazily I gaze upon 
the scene, it seems to be all shot through with childhood's mem- 
ories : the central rock grows larger— the waters deepen— the 
trees to the right of the road begin to show a more expansive 
growth, and the laughter of children mingles with the sound of 
grinding. A dull, monotonous grinding, perchance, you think. 
Yes, but wonderfully companionable to the timidity of child- 
hood that loved it for its constancy. Will the time ever come, 

[ 145 



when I shall cease to remember this spot ? Who can answer 
my query ? 

"Tis said that when life is ended here, 
The spirit is borne to a distant sphere ; 
That it visits its earthly home no more, 
Nor looks on tlie haunts it loved before. 
But why should the bodiless soul be sent 
Far off to a long, long banishment? 
Talk not of the light and living green, 
It will pine for the dear, familiar scene ; 
It will yearn in that strange bright world to behold 
The rock and the stream It knew of old." 

Cope's bridge was the outcome of an application to the 
Court at February Term, 1804, setting forth that the wooden 
bridge at this spot, erected in 1789, was fast going to decay, and 
would soon be dangerous for heavily loaded wagons to pass over. 
It also pointed out the great increase of travelling on the New 
State Road, and the consequent necessity for a substantial 
bridge over so great a stream. Anticipating objections, it con- 
cluded with a potent argument with which to silence all captious 
and exacting taxpayers— " when once erected permanently it 
will never again cost the county anything of consequence here- 
after." 

Chester County owes the signers of this petition a debt 
of gratitude, a debt which it can partially repay by instruct- 
ing its Commissioners hereafter not to replace the iron " mon- 
strosities" which span the Brandywine, with anything less 
substantial, or less beautiful than stone. Wyebrooke, Down- 
ingtown and Copetown, have bridges worthy of the stream 
they cross ; bridges that delight the eye of the stranger and 
improve the taste of the permanent resident of the county. 

Prior to the erection of the wooden bridge in 1789, referred 
to in the petition for the stone one, there had been a bridge of 
some kind across the stream at this point. The return of the 

[ 146 



> 

a 

> 



O 



CTQ 
ft> 




jury of view, laying out the road west of the Brandywine, from 
Hannum's Mill, made in 1785, mentions a bridge, and the plot ac- 
companying it, shows one. A document supposed to have been 
written in 1769, contains the following language : 

" Whereas the Neighborhood as well as Travellers & Market 
people from some Distance are under Great Difficulty & danger 
for want of a Bridge upon the East Branch of Brandywine 
Creek on the road Leading from Doe Run by Joseph Martin's 
Tavern to Philadelphia at the Ford called Taylor's ford in East 
Bradford, Chester county, 

" Therefore this is proposed as an Essay with respect to it to 
see what Encouragement can be had by way of Subscription 
where all persons who are desirous or willing to promote ye 
Building a Bridge at ye s^ place may subscribe according to 
their good pleasure herein. 

"It is intended to have it made sufficiently strong and 
planked over for men & horses to pass &c and Abiah Taylor and 
Nathan Cope appointed to undertake ye work &c. have ye over- 
sight of the same and get ye logs and other Timber Necessary 
prepared against Next Summer to have it Raised and all persons 
that subscribe any thing toward sd Bridge such of them that 
Chuseth to pay their subscriptions in work at it, shall be allowed 
to work out the same at such work as they are capable of they 
attending on ye work when Requeset." 

The last signature to this document is " John Coope." It 
would be interesting to know whether this is the John Cope of 
whom we read in the records of Bradford Meeting, for the year 
1748 ; the John Cope who was expected to declare his intentions 
of marriage with Elizabeth Fisher, and did not appear, " which 
is thought to be occasioned by the great floods." If it is, while 
we cannot wholly forgive him for displaying so little of the 
ancient spirit of Leander, who was willing to brave the Helles- 
pont for his Hero, or the modern spirit of Lochinvar, who 

147 ] 



" swam the Eske river, where ford there was none," still he de- 
serves some commendation for his efforts to provide against any 
disappointments of any future Elizabeths. 

In 1793, the Legislature of Pennsylvania appropriated the 
sum of four hundred dollars for viewing and laying out a road 
from Philadelphia to the Borough of York, in York County, 
through West Chester and Strasburg, crossing the Susquehanna 
at a place commonly called " Blue Rock." As there was no con- 
venient ferry over the Susquehanna at Blue Rock, nor could be, 
it seemed to some of the inhabitants of Lancaster County that 
the opening of a part of this road would be burdensome and 
useless. Accordingly, the Legislature directed only so much of 
the road to be opened as lay between the City of Philadelphia 
and the Village of Strasburg. This was done in 1794, whereupon 
the Village of Strasburg blessed it with its name. From Cope- 







town the Strasburg Road continues in a westerly direction, pass- 
ing over the Western Brandy wine at Mortonville, a distance of 
about six miles. Shortly after its construction, many who had 
occasion to travel it, either by horse or on foot, complained that 
it was most injudiciously located over hills, which might have 

[ 14S 



w 



o 
w 

H 



r 



M 
-^ 

M 



OS 




been readily avoided ; others asserted that the route was wisely- 
chosen, avoiding swampy ground, and affording a safe road for 
driving stock or the passage of heavily laden wagons. 

In using this road, you will find your opinion varying with 
the seasons. On a hot day, the hills seem almost interminable, 
and you take your stand with the complainants ; on a wet night 
in Spring, when the frost and rains have combined to make level 
roads almost impassable, upon turning into the Strasburg you 
experience emotions similar to Paul's when he met the brethren 
near the Three Taverns on the road to Rome. 




149 ] 



DEBORAH'S ROCK. 




" This spot indeed, 
Were worthy some tradition ; hast thou none 
Stored in thy memory, to beguile the time, 
While the sky burns above us?" 

Barry Cornwall. 

N the western side of the Brandywine, 
four hundred yards or so below Cope's 
bridge, there inses at the water's edge 
a precipitous mass of rock seventy 
feet high. The ascent on the north 
is steep and rugged, but a little exer- 
tion soon brings you to the top. When 
your breath is recovered, you are in- 
clined to dispute the modest estimate of seventy feet, and are 
quite willing to affirm that it must exceed a hundred. I shared 
this opinion myself, but taking a ball of twine and fastening a 
stone to one end, I flung it into the stream and found my error. 
Looking westwardly from the summit, you perceive that 
this mass of rock is the eastern tenninus of the highlands 
between you and Marshallton, a mile and a half distant. Facing 
about, the view, while not a comprehensive one, is interesting. 
To the left is the Strasburg Road leading to West Chester. It 
climbs the hill this side of the Old Black Horse Inn, and disap- 
pears. Southeastwardly, on the road running from the Stras- 

[ 150 








^^ 



^«|li«: 



|£i m\r 



— * j^li iJitvmt^ 



*■»: 



^ Wu^ 



c^ 



%^)rt«S(C«i6 



burg road to Jefferis's Bridge, at a distance of five hundred paces 

from the other side of the 

Brandywine, is a "Little 

Red House," still bearing 

its tablet with the chiseled 

figures, " 1724." The stream 

that flows near it, over 

which one can jump, is 

Black Horse Run. It rises 

north of the Strasburg and 

empties its waters into the 

Brandywine about an eighth 

of a mile from where you 

stand. From the crest of 

Deborah's Rock, looking southward over the rich meadow land, 

you can see " the Island," formed by a division of the stream, 

while a backward glance northward reveals a comparatively 

level pathway to the Strasburg, overlooked before. 

The descent on the southern side is gradual and shaded with 
trees. Once down, you can readily pass in front of a part of the 
rock, and form a crude conception of its outline, but to obtain a 
complete view, you must cross to the other side, where, seated on 
a stump, or backed up against some old sycamore, you can look 
it squarely in the face. In summer, when the trees are in full 
foliage, portions of its rocky features are concealed, but toward 
the end of October, when the leaves have mostly fallen, every 
line of its rough and seamy face is clearly visible. Ten or fif- 
teen feet from the water's edge, a part of the rock projects itself 
above the margin of land that lies beyond the edge of the 
stream, and darkly frowns upon the water, discountenancing all 
further encroachments. Under the shelter of this overhanging 
rock on any day in August, you can find at least one fisherman 
angling for carp. 
151] 



The last time I saw the rock, a colored woman was sitting 
under it upon a heap of stones, puffing away at her pipe, catch- 
ing a few minnows, oblivious to the noise of some carp that 
were playing leap frog with each other not fifty yards away. 

Artists have often attempted to paint this rock, photogra- 
phers to reproduce it, but always with indifferent success. 
Something is invariably lacking in both picture and photograph. 
" Peculiar shadows, confound them," they say, shadows that they 
find nowhere else along the stream. 

May not the reason lie deeper ? Will not all attempts prove 
abortive, until artists learn the lesson, at which Fra Lippo Lippi 
railed, and paint " no more of body than will show soul." There 
is something here beside mere rock, something that my line can- 
not measure nor your hammer strike, something ethereal that 
transfigures it— the Spirit of the Indian Deborah still animates 
the scene. 

Deborah was an Indian maiden who gathered in her person 
all the dusky beauty of her tribe. This was the land of her 
fathers. In these meadows, by these streams that then ran full 
to their brim, the wigwams of her people stood, and up these 
rocks her forest hero chased the wild deer and grappled with 
the bear. 

" A white man gazing on the scene, 

Would say a lovely spot was here. 
And praise the lawns so fresh and green, 

Between the hills so shear. 
1 like it not, I would the plain 

Lay in its tall old groves again. 

" Methinks it were a nobler sight 

To see these vales in wood arrayed, 

Their summits in the golden light, 
Their trunks in grateful shade, 

And herds of deer that bounding go 

O'er rills and prostrate trees below." 

[ 152 



;; -^^y^iSii >#; 



K-''i«.- V* ^MU 




Draper has Shot them All." Page 164. 



With the advent of the settler, there was a great change. 
Slowly the Indians fell back, until only a few remained. Among 
these was Deborah. Smitten with her charms a settler's son at- 
tempted to bend her to his will, and failed. He sought to seize 
her and she fled. Night was coming on apace, and in the dark- 
ness she mistook her way. The path she followed brought her 
to this rocky eminence, and here she halted. A moment later 
the sound of footsteps told her beating heart that safety was 
impossible : it was death or dishonor, and Deborah chose— 
death. Commending herself to the Great Spirit, she plunged 
into the stream and made her name immortal. 

In one of Addison's papers on Sappho, he refers to a little 
temple dedicated to Apollo, on the top of a promontory in Acar- 
nania, called Leucate. " In this temple it was usual for despair- 
ing lovers to make their vows in secret, and afterwards to fling 
themselves from the top of the precipice into the sea, where 
they were sometimes taken up alive. This place was therefore 
called the Lovers' Leap ; and whether or no the fright they had 
been in or the resolution that could push them to so dreadful a 
remedy, or the bruises which they often received in their fall, 
banished all the tender sentiments of love, and gave their spirits 
another turn, those who had taken this leap were observed never 
to relapse into that passion. Sappho tried the cure, but perished 
in the experiment." 

In the picturesque country of Wicklow— perhaps the most 
picturesque of all Ireland— the country that Dean Swift likened 
to "a frieze mantle fringed with gold lace," is the beautiful Glen 
of the Dargle. In the centre of this glen, hanging over the tor- 
rent, is a large crag, called the Lovers' Leap. 

Years ago, there lived near the entrance of the Gargle a 
fair girl of whom a young man was greatly enamored. One 
morning she requested him to bring her some trifle from Dub- 
lin, begging him, at the same time, not to inconvenience himself, 
153 ] 



but to wait till the next day. " Anxious to prove his devotion, 
the youth made no delay, but came back the same evening, just 
as the twilight was deepening into night. ' Flying on the wings 
of love,' he sought the haunt of his mistress, and found her 
sitting by the side of his rival. Instead of reproaching her for 
her rapid and cruel infidelity, he flung the bauble she had de- 
sired at her feet, and sprang, without a word, from off the 
rock." 

Nature has not furnished us with a Leucate, not even a 
Glen Dargle, but tradition has been doubly kind to us in its pre- 
sentations of two Deborahs— one heroic, the other pensive. A 
few bold strokes may serve to set forth the heroic, but pensive- 
ness has need of softer colors than are found upon my palette, 
and must employ far subtler lines than my rough pen can make. 

This spot was once a trysting place. Before these trees had 
sprouted, when yonder road was but a trail, an Indian's daughter 
here was wont to meet her pale-face lover. The moon alone looked 
down upon their meetings — these rocks alone gave audience to 
their vows. With Indian faithfulness she kept her pledge— 
with deep duplicity he played her false. Even when the truth 
was known she nightly visited this place, but never saw him 
more. With memory scored and heart all desolate, the moon- 
light found her once upon the cliff, intently gazing downward on 
the stream. It sought to soothe her sadness with its mildest 
beams, and painted pictures in the placid water, but all in vain. 
Her distraught mind no longer could distinguish between the 
sky and its reflections. Above, below, around her, everywhere 
the sky appeared to be inviting her to rest. At last she laid her 
head upon what seemed a floating pillow that bore her down- 
ward to the stream she loved and left her body to its gentle 
ministrations. 



[ 154 




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> 



BLACK HORSE RUN AND THE ISLAND. 




" Bright shone the glory of the rising day, 
When the fond traveller took his favorite way ; 
He mounted, gaily felt his bosom light, 
And all he saw was pleasing in his sight." 

Crabbe—The Lover's Journey. 

UMMER drives through sylvan scenes ! 
What more could one desire ? In 1815, 
a public road was opened, beginning 
in the Strasburg road about an eighth 
of a mile east of Cope's Bridge, run- 
ning south. 

Of all the roads in close proximity 
to West Chester, none is more gen- 
erally travelled by pleasure seekers, than this. The road is level, 
affords many views of the Brandywine, passes by several ob- 
jects of interest, and ends in the State Road not more than a 
few hundred yards from Jefferis's Bridge. 

On the left side of this road a hundred yards or so from its 
point of beginning, is the Little Red House that we saw from the 
top of Deborah's Rock. I have often noticed strangers stand- 
ing in front of its well bound hard brick walls, vainly endeavor- 
ing to make out its date. It was built in 1724, by Abiah Tay- 
lor, one of the earliest settlers in Bradford. Its bricks were not 
shipped from England, as was at one time currently reported, 
155 ] 



but were made from clay procured from a near-by field. 
Originally the window sashes were lead and the lights were very 
small, but within the memory of many who have seen it— possi- 
bly of some who read these lines, the lead was replaced with 
wood, and the size of the lights was materially increased. 

Abiah Taylor settled on the Brandywine in 1702, and built a 
mill on one of its branches, about a quarter of a mile to the east- 
ward. The sight of the mill can be seen from the Strasburg 
Road, but is often overlooked. In 1706, Abiah took up two hun- 
dred acres of land near by, and at once became, and remained 
for years, a prominent character in the township, enjoying the 
esteem of his neighbors and the confidence of the Court. The 
latter showed their estimate of his character by a variety of ap- 
pointments, the former by the position they gave his signature 
on their numerous petitions. 

Taylor was unquestionably a worthy name in the early an- 
nals of Bradford, so worthy — in the judgment of some of my 
Philistine friends — that even the Indian Deborah must bow be- 
fore a Quaker matron who possessed but its reflected honor. 

Considering the meager price Penn paid for all this fertile 
valley of the Brandywine, it does seem graceless to deny the 
Indian maiden's right to name this solitary rock, but to the ar- 
gument : 

On the twenty-fourth day of first month, commonly called 
January, one thousand seven hundred and fifty-nine, Samuel 
Taylor, of East Bradford, made his last will and testament, 
which gave unto his well-beloved wife, Deborah, so long as she 
remained a widow, a part of his plantation in the township ; 
" Beginning at the gate as it now stands on the southwest side 
of my barn yard and so bound by a ditch on the south side and 
extends to Brandywine creek and to cross the said creek, and 
then by a strait westerly line to a ditch that leads to Thomas 
Worth's line and all the land to the northwest of the above men- 

[ 156 



tioned line to the land late of John Taylor untill it comes to a 
lane that leads from the house to the lay'd out road including an 
orchard by the barn." 

As this devise embraced the rock, the rock received her 
name. How simple ! legal ! prosaic ! I might accept it myself 
were it not for the fact that every time I gaze into the calm, 
still waters that rest in the shadows of this rock, I see reflected 
the outlines of the kindliest face that ever looked into boyish 
eyes, and close beside it a childish figure, with his fist fast locked 
in his mother's hand, listening to the story of Deborah as only 
she could tell it. The story has grown common now ; for many, 
the poetry has ebbed away until nothing remains but an empty, 
prosaic shell, but for him that shell still echoes with the music 

of her voice. 

The creek that flows close by the garden of the Little Red 
House once bore the name of Taylor's Run, but with the grant- 
ing of license to the Black Horse Inn— an old hostelry still stand- 
ing on the Strasburg Road, about a half mile eastward from the 
Little Red House— it changed its name to that of the tavern near 

which it ran. 

For many years the Black Horse Inn was kept by John 
Dickinson— a rough old fellow, strong in his hatreds and equally 
strong in his friendships. 

When excited, which happened not infrequently, he would 
stamp his feet most vigorously ; indeed, a spot behind the old 
bar where the floor was almost worn through, used to be pointed 
out as Dickinson's stamping grounds. 

The table set by Dickinson was a bounteous one. His wife 
looked after that. No biscuits were so fresh as Kitty Dickin- 
son's, no pies so full, and when it came to dumplings— well, 
King George himself, might well have been excused for asking 
" How got these apples in?" 

A sturdy woman was the landlord's wife, and she had need 

157 ] 



to be, for the hours were long and the work was hard, in the li- 
cense days of the old Black Horse. But Kitty Dickinson be- 
lieved her mission was to work, and she fulfilled it uncomplain- 
ingly. Even after the inn had lost its license she still rose at day 
break, still worked long into the night. I never knew a woman 
who so thoroughly enjoyed the preparation of a meal, and when 
she had prepared it, it was worth its price to see her blow a blast 
upon a shell that lay close by upon the table. So potent was 
her playing that harvest hands would drop their scythes at her 
very first note. Yes, a sturdy woman was the landlord's wife, 
and generous as sturdy. The boys that fished all knew her, and 
she knew them — knew the length of Bradford hills — knew how 
hard it was to climb them, carrying only a string of redfins, and 
how doubly hard when one had none to wave, in answer to a pert 
inquiry. 

You, who abused her hospitality with your frequent calls, 
you, who too often sat in the open kitchen looking at the 
pans that shone like silver, while she went to find the remnants 
of the roast, or ends of cherry puddings, you, I know, can not 
forget her. Ah, generous soul, 

" God rest thee for thy kindness 
To many a hungry boy." 



[ 158 



FROM THE ISLAND TO THE FORKS. 




' Here as I take my solitary rounds 
Amidst thy tangling walks and ruined grounds, 
And many a year elapsed return to view, 
Where once the cottage stood— the hawthorn grew. 
Remembrance wakes with all her busy train. 
Swells at my breast and burns the past to pain." 

Goldsmith— Deserted Village. 

ESTWARD from West Chester two miles 
or more, on the eastern bank of the 
Brandywine, are Bowers' Paper Mills. 
"Are," did I say? I beg the reader's 
pardon. "Were" is the more appro- 
priate word, unless four walls alone can 
make a mill, for walls are all that now 
remain. The rooms have been dismantled, the doors stand open 
on their broken hinges, and the shattered windows freely now 
admit the sunlight, which the dirty panes would otherwise have 
barred. There are no secrets now, no signs that bar admittance 
—historian, tramp, school boy and coon hunter, alike are wel- 
come, or rather, the old mill is indifferent to each alike— it has 
no secrets now. 

Diagonally from it, at the junction of the roads, the man- 
sion shows evidences of quick decay, or galloping consumption. 
In vain the rose bush strives to hide the tottering porch, in vain 
a roving vine conceals in part a broken fence ; November winds 
reveal it all. The tottering porch and broken fence, the leaky 
pipes, the walls discolored with many a stain, are all portentous 
— all suggestive of approaching ruin. 
[ 159 



Just across the road half a dozen houses huddle together, 
their woeful and forlorn condition awakening the sympathy of 
every passer-by. Combinedly their strength is not enough to 
bear the ragged roof above them — sans windows, sans doors, 
they soon will be sans everything. Patiently have they waited 
for the old mill to resume its work, pitifully do they look at the 
mansion, now almost as wretched as themselves. Willingly would 
they fall and crumble into dust, could but one view be granted 
them of former times, when the mansion was surrounded by a 
garden of flowers, and a girlish figure, fairer than any flower, 
was swinging at the gate. 

" How is it," asks Balzac, " that men can never behold any 
ruins, even of the humblest kind, without feeling deeply stirred ? 
Doubtless it is because they seem to be a typical representation 
of evil fortune whose weight is felt so differently by different 
natures. The thought of death is called up by a churchyard, but 
a deserted village puts us in mind of the sorrows of life ; death is 
but one misfortune always foreseen, but the sorrows of life are 
infinite. Does not the thought of the infinite underlie all great 
melancholy?" 

West of the Deserted Village, as the paper mill and its sur- 
roundings are often called, is "The Island." Not a common 
island containing merely so many acres of land surrounded by 
water, but a bit of torrid zone transplanted into the North, rank 
in vegetation, thick with fallen timber, full of gullies, every- 
where cut up by streams and sloughs which, up to a few years 
ago, contained both fish and terrapin. 

To the hunter, as well as the fisherman, " The Island " is one 
of the best known spots on the Brandywine. " It is always good 
for a coon hunt," says 'Squire Paxson, President of the Coon 
Club, " but of course you don't always get the coon." Of course 
not, 'Squire, the last observation was unnecessary, for even 
when the night is right and the dogs are keen and the climbers 

[ 160 





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are skillful— a rare combination— the numerous channels furnish 
ready avenues of escape, and the great buttonwoods, rotten at 
the tops, offer a refuge when all others fail. 

Many a furious fight has taken place about the roots of 
some of the old black oaks that have here found nourishment 
for a century or more, and not a few late travelers along the 
public road that runs close to the mill, seeing the light of a 
waving lantern, have halted long enough to hear a coon's sharp 
cry or a dog's wild yelp. 

A couple of meadows below the paper mill, bring us to his- 
toric ground ; Jefferis's Bridge, to-day, Jefferis's Ford in Revo- 
lutionary times. Immediately above the bridge the Brandywine 
is shallow and narrow ; in ordinary times scarcely higher than 
one's ankles, and rarely exceeding in width eighty or ninety 
feet. To the average school-boy, a pool a little further up the 
creek, dubbed " Blue Rock," is better known than the ford, where 
the British Army crossed ; in fact, if any lad old enough to 
swim, were asked to locate Jeiferis's Ford, he would probably tell 
you it was south of " Blue Rock." 

Reading the sign-board at Jefferis's Bridge, you find that 
two miles westward will take you to Wawasset, two miles east- 
ward to West Chester, passing by Darlington Seminary, a fa- 
mous educational place, and a most delightful summer resort 
for strangers, who wish to visit or critically study Brandywine 
Battle Field. 

I go to the south. For at least a mile— as far as Shaw's 
Bridge the road is shady and comfortably level, a part of it 
lying in a wood remarkable for little else than its abundance of 
grapevines. At a turn, just before the road emerges, an elderly 
gentleman is pointing out to his son a tree, the trunk of which 
has forced two rocks asunder— illustrative of the power of life. 
Years ago, when traveling along this road, at this point the same 
tree and the same truth caught the eye of a prominent clergy- 

i6i ] 



man, who first called my attention to it. Since then it has been 
silently but effectively preaching its lesson to all who have eyes 
to see. 

Going south, the Brandywine is on your right hand, with a 
narrow meadow between, bordered by a hedge. On your left the 




Hi':\ 






land rises more or less abruptly, and consists of a succession of 
hills. A map made by John P. Baily about sixty years ago, 

t 162 






W 

JO 



'-a 
p 

(11 




shows a fairly accurate topographical view of the face of the 
country between Jefferis's Bridge and Lenape, except that much 
of the timber has disappeared. 

About a furlong below Shaw's Bridge the Eastern and the 
Western Brandywine unite and form a river. Seated on a log a 
little above their junction, I ask myself, what has become of 
the water of the dashing little rivulet that splashed in my face 
as I lay stretched out on the lonesome by-road in Honeybrook 
Township, at the base of the Welsh Mountains? Some of it has 
evaporated, some of it has stopped to refresh the drooping wild 
flowers that bent over it, some of it has ministered to weary 
travelers and thirsty cattle, and what remained, after turning 
the wheels of the old mills along its course, has doubtless long 
since passed into the Delaware. Its song has changed, its pride 
is humbled. Meeting with other streams, it has lost its identity. 
The lusty fellow who rows his boat on Lenape Dam knows 
nothing of its long and tedious journey — nothing of the rocks 
and fallen trees that have obstructed its current, nothing of its 
origin or service. What matters it— it is now a part of a 
larger, mightier stream that flows forever onward to the sea. 

For me, also, is the possibility of sharing in a larger and 
undying life. "Little, indeed," says Caird of Glasgow, "can 
each of us accomplish within the narrow limits of our own little 
day. Small is the contribution which the best of us can make 
to the advancement of the world in knowledge and goodness. 
But if the work we do is real and noble work, it is never lost, it 
is taken up and becomes an integral moment of that immortal 
life to which all the good and great of the past, every wise 
thinker, every true and tender heart, every fair and saintly 
spirit, have contributed, and which, never halting, never resting, 
onward through the ages is advancing to its consummation." 

As I watch the cattle feeding in the meadows of Lenape, 
I cannot help contrasting the land about " the Forks " with the 

163 ] 



rocky pastures near the sources of these streams, " where," in 
the words of Adam Troub, " it takes a lot of religion to farm." 

It is otherwise in Bradford. Her grain fields yield abundant 
harvests, and her prolific orchards can be seen on every side, 
with here and there a yoke of well groomed oxen resting in the 
shade. 

Of all the sportsmen that one meets at Lenape, I know of 
none quite comparable to Richard Draper. He knows the 
haunts of bass, where carp abound, beneath what ripples fall- 
fish lie, can point out shady pools that hide the sparkling sun- 
fish, and better still, can prove his statements accurate by 
catching them. Besides his piscatorial knowledge, Draper's ac- 
quaintanceship with birds is wide and intimate. In his collection, 
one can see almost every variety to be found along the Brandy- 
wine — giant herons, green herons and black-capped night-herons, 
loons and bitterns, blue-winged teal and green-winged teal, black 
ducks, fish ducks, mallards and wood ducks, great horned owls, 
long-eared owls and short-eared owls, besides Acadian, snow, 
screech and barn ; red-tailed hawks, broad-winged hawks, cooper 
hawks, arrow hawks, pigeon hawks and marsh hawks, jack 
snipes and sand pipers, rail birds and reed birds, a bald eagle 
from Nantmeal Marsh, and a lot of warblers from Bowers' 
Island. With few exceptions Draper has shot them all. His 
loon was shot at Cope's Dam— his bittern below Birmingham 
Park. Through his kindness I present them to my readers. 



[ 164 




60 



is 

o 

c 






MATHER'S MEADOW. 



' Lo ! now Azvay ! the Fox has gone. 
Forsakes his haunts and trusts his brawn. 
And led by his instinctive guides, 
Adown the current wind he glides ; 
Nor slacks his foot, nor veers his course, 
But onward holds through grove and gorse. 
Until by Dungeon Hollow's strand. 
He feels the moist air fresh and bland ; 
And sees his mirrored form below. 
And hears nor hound nor Tally-ho!" 

Everhart—The Fox Chase. 

HE "Fox Chase" is Everhart's most 
spirited poem. Dedicated to John Hick- 
man in 1873, it has ever since been 
greatly appreciated by all lovers of " the 
noble pastime of huntynge with run- 
nynge houndes." The late John W. 
Forney regarded it so highly that he 
unhesitatingly assigned it a superior 
place to the celebrated blank verse quarto called the " Chase," 
which appeared in 1735. Here, at Lenape, waiting for the 
West Chester car, the cry of hounds half a mile down the 
stream, recalls to my mind that the scenes of Everhart's Fox 
165 ] 




Chase lie all around me. On one side of Sagers's Bridge are 

" the braes of Birmingham," 

on the other, ., „ u ■ u* 

' Pocopson heights, 

Where many a gorgeous glimpse delights, 
Of rural shows, of pictured land. 
So multifarious, vast, and grand. 
And grouped and shaded with such grace- 
No art could half their beauties trace." 

From Lenape to Pocopson Bridge, between the public road 
and the Wilmington and Northern Railroad, on either side of 
the Brandywine, stretches Mather's wide and luxuriant meadow. 

Wandering down the Brandywine's western bank, beneath 
the tall trees that line the stream, one feels the influences of 
the place and recognizes the accuracy of Everhart's description : 

" A spot secluded, wild and weird, 
With summer charms subdued and seared ; 
With channel not too wide to show 
The flowers that beyond it blow. 
And deep enough for craft as big 
As pleasure skiff or naval gig ; 
Presenting in its waves serene, 
A varied and attractive scene, 
Of stretching lea and sheltering ridge, 
Of travelled way and covered bridge, 
Of shores, sustained by partial wall, 
By native rock, and timbers tall, 
Along the borders grown in files. 
With branching arcs, like Gothic aisles; 
While every ripple of the stream 
Reflects a many-colored gleam, 
Of foliage, aster, golden rod. 
Still decorating tree and sod ; 
And every nook and every glance 
Suggests tradition and romance ; 

A place for age and wearied care, 
For love, for penance, and for prayer. 
For dreamy thought, or festal hymn— 
A place to sail, or fish, or swim." 

[ i66 



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50 
O 



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3 



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05 
CD 




East of the Brandywine two white posts near a clump of 
trees by the roadside, mark the beginning of a lane leading to 
Mr. Mather's house, which remains invisible until one advances 
a few furlongs further, when the roof begins to show itself 
above some trees that stand close by. Originally a simple, 
roomy brick building, it has been so transformed by an Ionic 
portico, that a great part of the old front is concealed. On the 
farther side of the house the brick wall is plain and unrelieved, 
on the nearer, the lower lines of the same character of wall are 
broken by an Italian garden, which makes a resplendent show 
and bears tokens of assiduous care. 

In front of the house flows Radley Run, an inconsiderable 
stream that tarries long enough to tell you how the British sol- 
diers marching to Birmingham, crossed it a little south of 
Osborne's Hill. This bit of information given, Radley Run re- 
sumes its movement westward toward Pocopson Bridge. 

The lofty pillars, the chattering brook, the faint but de- 
licious scent of growing flowers, give the place an atmosphere 
of poetry. Even the stables are approached through tasteful 
arches made of stone. Passing through one of these, I met old 
Pagan, who resolutely refused to let the camera transfer his 
lines to paper, preferring to be seen in his progeny and remem- 
bered by his record. 

West of the mansion house, on a rise of ground, stand 
Mr. Mather's kennels, with a huntsman's quarters at the eastern 
end. Hardly had I entered the grounds, when I received a hearty 
welcome from a group of puppies playing on the greensward 
in front. Between them and myself a friendship was established 
at once. Inside the ivy-covered kennel walls, were dog-hounds 
and bitches, who gave me a vociferous greeting, in which, how- 
ever, as it seemed to me, I could distinguish one or two menacing 
tones. 

These jarring notes, however, are hushed at once on the 
167 ] 



appearance of the huntsman, Percy Picton. Picton was born 
in North Wales, but after living in Ii-eland for seven years or 
more, his Welsh characteristics became tempered with Irish 
geniality. On his entrance every dog has a look of expectation 
and friendly recognition. Did ever shepherd watch his lambs 
with greater care than Picton shows for his hounds? I 
doubt it. Each individual temperament seems known to him, 
each point of merit, and each slight defect ; he calls each hound 
by name and each responds. " Come, Bonny Belle, pretty little 
bitch," and down from the straw comes a lissome creature, with 
gentle eyes and waving tail, who says by every movement of her 
body, " Good morning, Percy Picton." 

" Come, Bonny Belle, pretty little bitch," how ordinary, how 
ineffective, when said by me, but when spoken by Picton, the 
words vibrate with kindliness, to which the hound at once re- 
sponds. What names he gives his dogs— True Lass, Blossom, 
Bees-wing and Try-well. Actually the poetical atmosphere of 
the house seems to pei-vade these kennels. Ideal names for 
ideal dogs. "Ah, Gertrude! Gertrude! will you, sir, look at 
those marks ! see, sir, the straight front legs ! there's a bitch 
without a blemish. And here, sir, over here, sir, are Glancer 
and Sailor and Dexter and Shamrock." 

" Yes, yes, I see them all, Picton, wagging their tails and 
barking their acknowledgments of your high encomiums, but 
Picton, what about the American hound?" 

"You can't beat him for nose, sir, but for foot and en- 
durance—well, there they are, sir," and up goes every head, 
and what to Picton's eye seems more important, every tail. 

While the huntsman and whips are getting ready for " an 
exercise," I watch the great caldron of boiling cracklings, look 
at the faultlessly clean feeding apartments, visit the hospital 
with but a single patient— a hound that has torn its foot in a 
hard run— inspect the sanitary arrangements (which are better 

[ 168 




Ah, Gertrum:! Gertrude!" Page 11)5. 



than West Chester's), and pause a moment before a board that 
rises a foot or so above the grass, and marks the spot where lies 

GALLOPIS, 

King of Hounds. 

By this time Picton is ready, and a moment later the dogs 
have started down the road. How close they gather to the 
horses, with tails high in the air, eager for a run. Into the 
fields they go, then out upon the road again toward Dungeon 
Hollow. A few minutes more and they have entered the 
meadow and crossed the stream. 

Pursued by such a pack the cautionary words of Everhart 
might well be heeded : 

" Let Reynard hasten— for although 
The sunbeams now are slanting low, 
The dogs gain faster than the night, 
And he grows weaker with the light. 

Nor can the dusk of eventide 
His pace improve or figure hide, 
Nor cloud of mist will here descend, 
Like that which saved Idalias's friend ; " 

I sit by the fording and await their return. It is the Eleventh 
of September, nineteen hundred and six. It had not occurred 
to me before. One hundred and twenty-nine years ago, in this 
very township of Birmingham, the Battle of Brandywine was 
fought. Yonder is Pocopson Bridge, , 
over which passes the old Marlborough | ^ , W 

Road. Along that road a mile or so east- ^--i|ripJ|^,Aj^^ 
ward, the first firing began. Where ;^^^^^f;v;/„c^^^ 
stands Pocopson Bridge was Jones's, or '^f^^'^-v' ^..^^ 
Painter's Ford ; and Sager's, half a mile " '^^,,^y<Myy^fiM^^ 
above me, was known as Jones's, or marlborouoh road. 

Wistar's, afterward as Shunk's, two of the fords that on the 
night before the battle, Sullivan, stationed at Brinton's— the 
next ford below— was ordered to guard. 
169 ] 



But here comes Picton and his hounds down the bank 
through the water, Glancer, Shamrock and Blossom, well in 
front. A minute later they have shaken the water from their 
coats and passed far up the lane, whither I went two hours ago. 
Good bye, Picton, the car at Lenape is waiting for passengers. 
From its windows I look at the visitors about the station, at a 
little girl handling her yoke of oxen ,. ,..,v-,.., 
with consummate skill, at the doubling -j^^^-^^^J^,^.', '^r 
and winding stream, at the rich mead- '1 lA^^'xV'c'^ 
ows, and then at the rolling hills beyond, :'^ ' 
that mingle with and succeed each other, f-^:: 
until the line of the far-off horizon -- -" 
shuts them from my sight. "=-t:>SJs^4'^^^-%cv5^ 




[ 170 



.^.i'^^t^." 




"O.N THK TriXK (IK THK OaK IS A I'LAfAKD." Page 172. 



OSBORNE'S HILL. 



" Whoever heard of Sconnelltown ? 

A village long ago, 
That on the heights of Bradford stood, 

With Brandywine below. 
They say it was a thriving place. 

When in its day of palm, 
Cornwallis lunched his army there, 

Marching to Birmingham. 

" It was there the Quakers, driven 
By battle's loud refrain. 
From their ancient house of worship, 

Came near the foe again ; 
And devoted to their service, 
Within their lowly walls, 
They silently awaited him. 

As Romans did the Gauls." 

Everhart — Sconnelltown. 

'LITTLE west of an elevation known as 
Mount Bradford, about midway between 
West Chester and Lenape, lies Sconnell- 
town, once a flourishing village, but now 
in our time consisting only of a wide- 
spreading oak, a Granger's hall, a mes- 
suage and lot recently referred to in 
Court as "a residential property," and a 
common country school house with a reputation seared by 
lightning. What became of the villagers, or when they made 
their exodus, no one appears to know. 

" For tradition ne'er related, 

What finished their career ; 
We only know they flourished once. 
And are no longer here." 

[ 171 




On the trunk of the oak is a placard bearing the words, 







SCONNELTOWN 




HALT 

1 


ON 


ROUTE OF 
SEPT. II 


CORNWALLIS' 
, 1777- 


ARMY 



Here, one can read the narrative of Joseph Townsend intel- 
ligently, can resurrect the wheel-wright shop and people it with 
Friends. Birmingham has been taken for hospital purposes. 
"What next?" the TowTisend boys ask each other, as they go 
down the road, filled with curiosity, and "fond of new things." 
They shall indeed see new things. Already the alarm has 
sounded, and " the English are coming," is passing from lip to 
lip. Let the lads hasten toward Jefferis's Ford, half a mile off, 
and they will find the red-coats coming out of the woods, mov- 
ing down the slopes into the fields on the west side of the 
Brandywine above the fording place. One hundred — two hun- 
dred — a veritable army swarms over the meadow land of Em- 
mor Jefferis. How the water splashes as they go tramping 
through it. Seven thousand soldiers of King George, who left 
Kennett this morning in a fog and crossed the Western Brandy- 
wine at Trimble's Ford two hours ago. Up the hill they come, 
" with arms and bayonets as bright as silver," headed for Scon- 
nelltown. "What fine looking fellows they are," says Abel 
Boake's wife, who, too, is fond of new things. " Something like 
an army," do they seem to her, these Hessian advance guards, 
with beards on their upper lips— a novelty in this part of the 
country— also with long swords and cutlasses ; more interesting 
than the baggage wagons that followed, but by no means so en- 
trancing as the portly English officers " with skins as white and 
delicate as females," who enter "an eligible house" at Scon- 
nelltown and ask about the rebels. 

" You've a hell of a fine country here," observes one ; an 
observation that no one disputes. 

[ 172 



" Where is Mr. Washington ?" asks another ; to which one of 
the Townsends suggests a little patience and a possible meet- 
ing. 

" What sort of fellow is he, anyhow? " inquired a third. 
" A stately, well-proportioned man, active, firm, resolute, es- 
teemed by everj^body," comes the response. 

" Most damnably misled to take up arms against his sover- 
eign." So runs the conversation, interrupted by the passing of 
Lord Comwallis on horseback, very tall, very erect, glorious in 
scarlet, loaded with gold lace ; but let criticism be charitable, for 
WajTie, too, has an unspeakable bias in favor of an elegant 
uniform, and " would rather risk his life and reputation at the 
head of the same men in an attack, clothed and appointed as he 
could wish, merely with bayonets and a single charge of ammu- 
nition, than to take them as they appear in common, with sixty 
rounds of cartridges." Besides, the Comwallis of to-day may 
be the Cobwallis of to-morrow. "At Yorktown Washington 
shelled all the com off him," declared a punster of this ven,- 
township of East Bradford, which sage reflection, had it been 

made in time, might 
have cheered de- 
spondent hearts ; but 
now, resplendent in 
epaulettes, Comwal- 
lis is pre-eminently 
martial, anxious to 
get a view of the 
rebels. He shall see 
them from Osbome's 
Hill. Montressor, 
Chief of Engineers, 
can tell him the distance, for he has been long in the county 
and knows the locality. SLx hundred yards will take him to 

173] 




STRODE' 5 Mill. 



Strode's Mill, another six hundred will bring him to the top of 
Osborne's Hill, marked by scrawny locusts, a place where, if his 
glasses be strong enough, he may note a few ragged Continen- 
tals near Marlborough Road waiting to receive the Hessian 
plunderers. 

At Chad's Ford the morning has been wasted in skirmishes. 
Captains Wagoner and Porterfield have engaged the British 
flankguard, killed a captain and almost taken a field-piece. On 
the other hand, Maxwell's corps has been driven from the hills 
west of the Brandywine, across the stream, and the British gen- 
eral, Knyphausen, is parading on the heights. At Washington's 
quarters is much confusion. Colonel Bland has reported that a 
large force of British troops has been seen advancing up the 
road toward Trimble's Ford ; Colonel Ross has confirmed the re- 
port, and Greene and Sullivan have been ordered to cross the 
stream and attack 
the enemy's left. 
But Major Spear, 
who has ridden over 
the road from Mar- 
tin's Tavern to 
Welch's Tavern, 
has seen nothing of 
the British, and 
other intelligence 
indicates that what 
has been previously 
observed, is a mere feint. Greene is recalled and scouts are 
sent out for additional information. They need not go far, for 
'Squire Cheyney, of Thornbury, on a horse covered with foam, 
is at hand with the startling news that Cornwallis has turned 
the American flank, and is not two miles distant. Let Sullivan, 
Stirling and Stevens, take their positions, and take them at 

[ 174 




OSBORNE'S Hill and Raolev Run. 



B 



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once, for Cornwallis has not only turned the American flank, but 
rested his men for over an hour, and is almost ready to charge. 

From Osborne's Hill to Radley Run-a distance of six 
hundred paces— the land slopes quickly, and rises just as quickly 
on the other side for possibly a furlong, then follows undu- 
lating ground for half a mile to the Marlborough Road, five 
hundred yards beyond which, on higher ground, rises Birming- 
ham Meeting House. 

The large and portly man who stops his horse close by Corn- 
wallis's side, is General Howe, whose face, as seen by Joseph 
Townsend, is big and coarse in features, and owing to his loss 
of teeth, his mouth looks " fallen in." Behind him rides a hand- 
some officer— young Percy— who views the landscape, and in- 
forms his servant, Clifford, how in his dreams he has seen the 
field before in England, " Here I shall die ! " 

Howe and Cornwallis also view the landscape. " How well 
the rebels form ! " mutters Cornwallis, then shutting his glasses 
with an oath, he gives the order to advance. 

Adown the hill they go, young Percy halting long enough to 
give his watch and purse into his servant's hands, to charge him 
with some messages to friends, before he dashes forward on his 

ride to death. 

The Hessian guards soon reach the Marlborough Road, are 
fired on from Jones's orchard, return the fire, scale the fence, 
are reinforced, advance, then all is merged in smoke, out of 
which issues "a most infernal fire of cannon and musketry, 
mingled with shouting, ' Incline to the right ! Incline to the 
left ! Halt ! Charge ! ' the balls ploughing up the ground, the 
trees crackling over their heads, the branches riven by the artil- 
lery, the leaves falling as in autumn, by grape-shot." When the 
smoke has cleared away, British soldiers shall find not far from 
the northern wall of the grave-yard, some Continentals stark 
in death, and lying near them, Percy of Northumberland. 

[ J75 




The story is an old one— I shall not repeat it. Already twi- 
light is settling over the scene, obscuring all before me. From 
Osborne's Hill I watch it slowly falling on Biddle's tower that 

marks the spot where Stirling formed 
his line of battle; falling on the old 
meeting-house still stained with the 
blood of patriots ; falling on the little oc- 
:^ tagonal school-house near to the grave- 
" yard, the walls of which served as 
breast-works in the fight ; falling on the 
graves of Revolutionary soldiers, unknown to all save God. 

Generous hearts have raised upon this battle-field, two 
monuments to Lafayette, and fa- 
mous orators have told his worth 
to those who have gathered round 
them, until his name and person- 
ality are singularly familiar. Per- 
haps too much has not, will not, 
can not, be said of "the hero of 
two worlds," whom Washington 
called his son ; but, as the shadowy 
heroes troop along the horizon 
of this consecrated ground, my 
eyes rest on a plainer face, stamped 
with simplicity and stern morality ; 
my thoughts turn toward a Quaker 
General, whose skill and prowess 
saved the field of Brandywine, and 
many another, from grave disaster. 

Honor to Lafayette ! and honor, also, to Nathaniel Greene ! 
the greatest military genius that the Revolutionary War pro- 
duced. 




TAYLOR'S Monument to the Memory 
OF Lafayette. 



[ 176 




"A Quaker General." Page 176. 



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